Cloud County Men's Track Finishes Seventh at 2024 NJCAA Indoor Track Championships
Two school records, a National Championship relay performance, and five top-five finishes highlighted the 2024 NJCAA Indoor Track and Field Championships for the Cloud County Community College men's track and field team at the Alachua County Sports and Events Center in Gainesville, Florida on Saturday, March 2nd.
In the final team scoring, Cloud County finished with 41 points to finish in seventh, 10 points ahead of eighth-place Iowa Central who scored 31 points at the meet. Winning their first Indoor Track National Title in program history was Indian Hills Community College with 91.5 points to edge out New Mexico Junior College (84 points) and South Plains (74 points) who made up the top three. Barton Community College took fourth with 70 total points followed by Iowa Western (69.50 points) and Pima (56 points) as teams ahead of CCCC while Coffeyville (30 points) and Vincennes (27 points) rounded out the top-10 of the 32 teams who scored at the meet.
Friday Recap:
With a pair of athletes competing in the first five events of the heptathlon along with five scored events and four events featuring T-Bird athletes in preliminary races, Cloud County scored 11 points with a fifth-place finish coming from the distance medley relay team (Nirmit Dahiya, Corey Ottey, Kamogelo Thipe, and Siyabonga Mokgothu) combining to run a school-record time of 9:53.95 to take fifth as the top-two teams in the race both surpassed the previous NJCAA record time. Ottey went on to add a fourth-place finish in the high jump after clearing 2.04 meters (6 ft. – 8.25 in.) which was the second-best mark recorded at the meet to have a hand in 8.5 of Cloud County's 11 points on Friday. The remaining points came from Mohamed Belhassen with a seventh-place finish in the pole vault (4.59 meters, 15 ft. – 0.75 in.) and eighth-place finish from Mokgothu in the 3,000 meters (8:17.23) as the T-Birds entered day two action in 10th place as a team.
Other highlights from day one action included a trio of Cloud County athletes qualifying for Saturday's finals race in the 800 meters with Thipe (1:52.38), Nichalas Power (1:53.11), and Ishmael Acheampong (1:53.14) all running times that finished in the top-nine out of a 36-runner field to advance to the finals. Power went on to qualify for the finals in the 1,000 meters with a time of 2:27.17 to have two events to compete in on the final day of events. Heptathlon highlights included Kevin Brooks winning the 60 meters with a time of 6.97 seconds and Brandon Hutchinson recording the third-best long jump mark of 6.94 meters (22 ft. – 9.25 in.). Brooks went on to have the second-best high jump mark (1.93 meters, 6 ft. – 4 in.) of all 15 multi-event athletes while seeing Hutchinson post a time of 8.29 seconds in the 60 meters hurdles to finish second of the 15-athletes in the heptathlon.
Saturday Results:
Finishing up the heptathlon, Brooks highlighted the final two events for Cloud County with a second-place finish in the 1,000 meters by running a time of 2:49.66 and finished the seven events with a total score of 4,862 points to take fourth overall to score five points for the T-Birds in the team score. Not far behind was Hutchinson after finishing with 4,766 points to add another three team points with a sixth-place finish as the two were the lone representatives from the Kansas Jayhawk Community College Conference to finish in the top eight.
In the only other field event to have a Cloud County athlete competing, the triple jump resulted in an eighth-place finish for Awakhiwe Ndlovu after recording a mark of 14.93 meters (48 ft. – 11.75 in.) with the remaining points for CCCC coming in track events. Turning in the lone National Championship performance was the 4x800 meter relay team (Mokgothu, Power, Acheampong, and Thipe) to go along with a school record and facility record with a time of 7:32.71 to break the previous record of 7:42.13 set just three years earlier.
Four other times finished in the top eight of their respective events including a trio of 800 meters times with Power leading the way with a third-place finish (1:51.70) followed by Thipe in sixth (1:53.10) and Acheampong in eighth (1:53.49). Power went on to add an eighth-place finish in the 1,000 meters (2:29.68), finishing with three marks in the top eight on Saturday.
What's Next?
A much-needed week off to recover and prepare for the change from the indoor to the outdoor season is in store for Cloud County after having competed in six of the past seven weekends dating back to January 20th. The 2024 outdoor season for CCCC will get underway on Friday, March 15th with a trip to Denton, Texas to take part in the two-day University of North Texas Invitational to kick off the first of six scheduled regular-season events that the T-Birds will take part in for the outdoor season.