KEARNEY, Neb. - Battling four other NJCAA teams and one NCAA Division II squad, the number seven nationally ranked Cloud County Community College men's cross country team would be led by an individual title from sophomore Habtamu Geta at the 2020 University of Nebraska Kearney Invitational held at Meadowlark Hills Golf Course in Kearney, Neb., on Friday.
Taking third place overall as a team, the T-Birds would score a team total of 68 points to trail host and team champion UNK who won the meet with 25 points and second-place Hutchinson who earned runner-up honors with 62 points. Dodge City would come in fourth with 91 points while Northwest Kansas Tech also posted a team score and finished with 129 points for fifth.
Geta would run his second-best 8K time of the year to earn the win by four seconds and post a time of 25:07.30, outdueling Teagan Flanagan of Hutchinson who would finish as runner-up in the 46-runner field. Cloud County would also get a 14th-place finish from Michael Iyali who posted a time of 26:10.80 while Linus Limo would come in 23rd with a time of 27:23.70. Coming in 25th overall would be freshman Rylan Cheney who finished with a time of 27:38.10 while Ryder Amos finished out the T-Bird team scoring by running a time of 31:03.40 for 40th overall.
What's next?
Postseason competition is next on the docket for CCCC as the T-Birds will be back in action on Oct. 28 to take part in the 2020 NJCAA Region VI Championships in El Dorado. The meet, which is being hosted by Butler Community College, will be held at the same location as this year's Ollie Isom Invitational which Cloud County also participated in earlier this year. CCCC is defending NJCAA Region VI Champs, but will have just one runner competing that participated in last year's Region Championships.