ABILENE - Abilene Christian cross country swept the team titles and claimed both individual crowns Homecoming Saturday at the Naimadu Classic. This was the Wildcats' final race of the 2020 fall season.
"It was a good day overall, but the wind was stronger than we thought," said ACU head cross country coach
Jarvis Jelen. "We flipped the course around a little bit to minimize the wind but we were still able to get some good performances in. I was happy to get the two wins during our last meet of the year. Since we don't have conference it was nice to get out here and be competitive.Â
The ACU men edged Texas State, 31-33, as the Wildcats four runners finish among the top 10 led by junior
Kevin Kipkosgei, who finished the 8K course in 25:25.90, roughly four seconds ahead of Bobcat runner-up Justin Botello (25:29.81).Â
UTSA scored 57 team points.
"Our men were solid," said Jelen. "I'm glad we still got the win with one of our runners having to drop out on the last loop, but we still pulled it out. Kevin getting the win over the guy from Texas State was good to see. He's a great runner who did real well the other week at Oklahoma State's Cowboy Jaboree (24th, 25:16.5)."
Sophomore
Maxwel Kiplagat placed third in 25:39.55 and
Denis Lagat held off Texas State's Nicholas Mosqueda for sixth place by 1.08 seconds.
Levi Chambers cracked the top 10 with his ninth-place time of 27:01.08, and freshman
Gabe Embree was ACU's No. 5 runner in 27:45.95.
"It was good, and amazing to compete today with everyone coming out to support," said Kipkosgei, who has led his team at all three of this year's races. "I'm very grateful and thankful to have raced today because we wanted to show how good we could be vs. this level of competition. Even with the wind, we all had good times. I just kept progressing as the race went on and paying attention to how everyone else was running."
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The women's 6K race was never much in doubt as the Wildcats swept the top-three places en route to scoring 21 points. Sophomore
Irene Rono won her season debut in 21:38.54, which was 20-plus seconds ahead of teammate
Briahna Gerlach (21:59.54). Sophomore
Grace White placed third (22:21.63) followed by junior
Sarah Wagler (sixth, 23:04.98) and senior
Hannah Marut (ninth, 24:03.69).
"The women really came out to race today," said Jelen. "They did a really great job and there were a lot of huge performances. I'm very happy with Irene. She has been getting back into training after an injury, and this was her best race as a Wildcat. It's good to see her get on track. We knew she had this kind of ability, but didn't expect it to come out today. Now that she's had this kind of race, I'm hopeful it will boost her confidence."
Texas State scored 48 points in the women's race, and UTSA had 59 in its first race of the season.
"It felt so good to run and I'm so happy I came out on top today since this was my first time running this semester," said Rono. "I've been injured for a while ... but I felt good running as soon as I went out and I thank God to be able to run that fast."
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