Cloud County Track Teams Ranked Inside Top-10 of First USTFCCCA Poll of Indoor Season
With two weeks of the 2023 NJCAA indoor track and field season in the books, the United States Track and Field Cross Country Coaches Association has released the first NJCAA Indoor Track and Field Top-25 Polls of the season with both the Cloud County women's and men's track teams holding down top-10 spots in their respective polls.
In the polls, the T-Bird women come in ranked fifth with a computer-generated total of 215.07 points while the CCCC men find themselves ranked eighth with 93.84 points in the first of six regular season polls to be released this season.
The top-five ranking for Cloud County on the women's side comes as part of 12 top-10 marks in the NJCAA this season with eight of the ten marks ranking inside the top five of their respective events. Holding down the top mark in the 60-meter hurdles is sophomore Miracle Thompson following her school-record performance of 8.39 seconds at the Washburn Rust Buster Classic while also holding the third-best time in the 60 meters. Other top-three marks for CCCC include Shackala Henry (second) and Vanessa Mercera (third) in the high jump, Jasmine Sakaguchi with the second-best mark in the pole vault, Vimbayi Maisvorewa with the third-best time in the 400 meters, and the 4x400 meter relay team of Mercera, Passion Crews, Lela Singleton, and Maisvorewa having the third-best time of all relay teams in the NJCAA. The 215.07 points are just five points back of fourth-place Barton who has 220.30 points as the teams ranked second through fifth are separated by just 36.46 points. Other teams ranked ahead of Cloud County in the top three are top-ranked New Mexico Junior College, second-ranked Iowa Western, and third-ranked South Plains College.
In the men's top-25 poll, Cloud County is one of three teams from the Kansas Jayhawk Community College Conference to be ranked inside the top-10 alongside fourth-ranked Barton and seventh-ranked Butler. South Plains holds down the top spot with 417.26 points while New Mexico Junior College (286.55 points) and Indian Hills (234.75 points) round out the top three. Four marks by T-Bird men's athletes currently rank inside the top-10 of their respective events, with Mohamed Ahmed leading the way with the top mark in the weight throw (19.87 meters, 65 ft. - 2.25 in.). Other top-10 marks include the third-best mark in the pole vault coming from Ben Okraska (4.60 meters, 15 ft. - 1 in.), the sixth-best triple jump mark from Oageng Mdlela, and the fifth-best time in the NJCAA in the 4x400 meter relay coming from Emmanuel Wanga, Hassan Abidi, Daniel Siaffa, and Jonathan Dende.
The T-Birds resume action tomorrow with the two-day Wichita State University Herm Wilson Invitational. Friday's action will include the multi-event athletes along with the weight throw, triple jump, pole vault, and 5,000 meters. All other events will occur on Saturday, January 28th with action beginning at 9:30 AM and concluding at approximately 8:30 PM.