EL DORADO – Add another hurdle cleared to the list of things the number five ranked Cloud County Community College men's cross country team has overcome this season as the T-Birds won their second consecutive NJCAA Region VI Division I and KJCCC West Division titles at the 2020 NJCAA Region VI Championships in El Dorado, Kansas on Friday.
Having made program history last year en route to their first national title, Cloud County was able to come together as a team on Friday despite having only one runner back from last year's history-making squad to beat out the 10-team field in the Division I race by finishing with 37 points, 27 points better than second-place and fourth-ranked Hutchinson Community College. Seventh-ranked and host Butler Community College would round out the top-three with a distanced third-place finish with 82 total points as the trio would be the only three teams to break 100 points in the meet.
"It's been a whirlwind kind of day as we knew anything was possible in the men's race and for the guys to be able to pull out a second-straight Region VI and KJCCC West Division Title is truly an amazing feat after losing five out of six runners from a year ago," said head coach Drew Mahin in a post-race interview. "The obstacles and challenges this team has overcome is a huge testament to how much this team has grown throughout the year and become a family that truly cares for each other while doing whatever it takes to make the team better.
"Being able to create a team from a few key components and pull this off is something that I can't put into words how proud I am of this team."
The excitement would begin for the T-Birds before the race even started as sophomore Awet Beraki would and the team would be notified of his eligibility hardship waiver getting approved just 30 minutes before the starting gun, giving the T-Birds a sixth runner for the first time this season. The native of Eritrea would make the most of the opportunity, going out and earning an NJCAA Region VI Individual title with a time of 24:24.56 to set the tone for the rest of the T-Bird runners.
"I wasn't expecting to race today, but getting the news 30 minutes before the race that I can compete and having the team hyped up about the news showed me just how much we've come together as a team," said Awet Beraki. "The excitement definitely helped as fatigue set in during the final mile, but knowing that I haven't raced all season and how much a strong finish would mean to the team definitely helped push me through the finish line."
Cloud County's lone runner with experience in the Region VI Championship meet Habtamu Geta would manage to finish as runner-up behind Beraki with a time of 24:53.38 while Michael Iyali would take sixth with a time of 25:41.29 to give the T-Birds three All-Region performers. CCCC would also get a 14th place finish from Linus Limo (27:09.89) along with a 17th place finish from Rylan Cheney (27:15.08) and 63rd place finish from Ryder Amos (31:40.49). Five of the six times put up by T-Bird runners would end up being personal bests on the year.
What's next?
Cloud County will look to make some more noise in two weeks as the T-Birds will travel to Fort Dodge, Iowa to compete in the 2020 NJCAA Division I National Championships which is being hosted by top-ranked Iowa Central Community College. CCCC will put their defending National Title on the line as T-Birds will look for their third-straight top-10 team finish at the National Championships.
--cloudtbirds.com--