TOPEKA – A balanced effort from both track events and field events, the Cloud County Community College men's track and field team would finish second overall at the 2021 Washburn University All-Kansas Invite in Topeka, Kansas on Saturday.
Trailing only meet champion Pittsburg State (98 points), Cloud County would finish with 88.50 points) to edge Fort Hays State who took third with 84 points. The T-Birds would be the only NJCAA program in the top-four as Washburn took fourth (75 points) followed by Fort Scott, Pratt, Northwest Kansas Tech, Cowley, Garden City, Ottawa University, and Benedictine.
Saturday's highlight would come courtesy of Daniel Cope in the weight throw as the sophomore would toss a school-record 18.02 meters (59 ft. – 1 in.) to punch his ticket to the national meet in March while also winning the 14-thrower event. Cloud County would also get event wins from Courtney Lawrence in the shot put (18.00 meters, 59 ft. – 0.75 in.) and Elijah Wilson in the high jump (1.99 meters, 6 ft. – 6.25 in.) along with the 4x400 meter relay team of Timothy Nyinguan, Jaysaun Smith, Shadrick Tansi, and Emanuel Wanga (3:18.14). The 4x400 meter relay time would be one of three national qualifying marks set on Saturday by the CCCC men as Awet Beraki would also set a national qualifying mark in the mile run with a time of 4:15.99.
Earning a runner-up finish in the long jump would be Smith with a leap of 6.80 meters (22 ft. – 3.75 in.) while Nyinguan would take fourth (6.60 meters, 21 ft. – 8 in.) while also taking third in the triple jump (44 ft. – 11 in.). Smith would also add a third-place finish in the 400 meters with a time of 50.46 while Tansi posted Cloud County's lone other top-three finish with a time of 22.29 in the 200 meters.
Cloud County would also add a fifth-place finish from Marcquiece Cade in the 60-meter hurdles (8.51) and Andrew Betton in the high jump (1.89 meters, 6 ft. – 2.25 in.) while Ephraim Lerkin (1:59.20) and Rylan Cheney (2:00.17) took seventh and eighth in the 800 meters. Closing out the top-eight finishes on Saturday would be Renaldo Savoury in the pole vault (4.08 meters, 13 ft. – 4.5 in.) Habtamu Geta in the mile (4:29.09) and Nyinguan in the 400 meters (50.46) as Savoury finished seventh while Geta and Nyinguan took eighth to give Cloud County 17 top-eight finishes.
What's next?
Cloud County will have a week to prepare for their next competition as CCCC is scheduled to compete in the Kansas Jayhawk Community College Conference/NJCAA Region VI Invitational in Pittsburg on Jan. 31. The meet comes as a replacement to next week's Washburn Invitational, as the T-Birds were scheduled to be back in Topeka but have swapped meets to compete against NJCAA competition at the site of this year's NJCAA Region VI Championships and NJCAA Indoor National Championships.
--cloudtbirds.com--