Cloud County Women's Cross Country Team Finishes 14th at NJCAA Division I Cross Country Championships
With two runners finishing inside the top 35 individually, the Cloud County Community College women's cross country team would take 14th overall at the 2023 NJCAA Division I Cross Country Championships held at John Hunt Park in Huntsville, Alabama on Saturday, November 11th.
In a deep field of teams that saw each of the top 19 team finishes come from ranked programs, CCCC would finish with 361 points to sit just 11 points back of 13th-place Monroe College while outpacing 15th-place finisher Eastern Florida State who finished with 386 total points. The T-Birds would be one of just two teams to have the minimum number of scoring runners compete in the race to finish in the top 15, with Colby Community College also having just five runners while earning a fifth-place team finish. The 2023 National Championship would be a runaway victory for Salt Lake Community College with all five scoring runners finishing in the top 20 and seven runners placed within the top 26 of the 181-runner field. New Mexico Junior College would claim national runner-up honors after finishing with 93 total points while Iowa Western Community College would have the individual national champion in Silvia Gradizzi and take third as a team with 102 points.
Capping off a memorable freshman campaign, N Vanee Anchike would take 10th place overall to earn second-team All-American honors after running a time of 18:16.50 and finishing as the highest runner from the Kansas Jayhawk Community College Conference with only one other KJCCC runner finishing in the top-15. 30 seconds back of the pace run by Anchike would be fellow freshman Ozia Trujillo who would run a time of 18:54.00 to take 31st overall and not far off the pace of a top-15 finish that would have led to All-America distinction. Jaelyn Rumback would be the next-highest finisher for CCCC by running a time of 20:56.30 to place 101st while Joella Mathilda (110th, 21:08.10) and Nikola Prochazkova (132nd, 21:51.70) rounded out the team score for the T-Birds.
Of the five runners for Cloud County to compete on Saturday, three will have one final race to run in on Tuesday, November 14th as the cross country season will conclude with the 2023 NJCAA Half Marathon Championships which will also be held at John Hunt Park in Huntsville, Alabama. CCCC will compete as a team with Anchike, Trujillo, and Prochazkova all set to run the 13.1-mile race that will begin at 9 AM local time. Live results for the Half Marathon Championships will be available at https://live.xpresstiming.com/meets/28846.