Cloud County Women's Track & Field Team Finishes 2nd at 2024 NJCAA Region VI Championships
Entering final day action in fourth place and 41 points back of day two leader Barton Community College, the Cloud County Community College women's track and field team used seven individual NJCAA Region VI Championship performances to score a final-day high 137 points and move up two spots to finish as 2024 NJCAA Region VI Runners-Up at the Bill Keller Family Sports Complex in Pratt, Kansas on Saturday, May 4th.
Nearly closing the gap that existed between them and Region VI Champion Barton over the course of the final 16 points, the gap proved to be just a bit too large to overcome as the Cougars won the Region VI Title with 168 points while Cloud County finished with 160 points in what ultimately became a two-team race with no other team eclipsing the 90-point mark. Hutchinson finished a very distant third with 88.5 points to edge Fort Scott who finished in fourth with 88 points while Cowley took fifth with 61.5 points.
With three field events and four track events accounting for the seven Region VI Titles, CCCC finished with 20 top-eight finishes on Saturday as part of their massive final-day points haul. Opening the day with Region VI Titles were Tamara Thompson in the hammer throw (49.44 meters, 162 ft. – 2 in.), Jasmine Sakaguchi in the pole vault (3.62 meters, 11 ft. – 10.5 in.), and Shackala Henry in the high jump (1.73 meters, 5 ft. – 8 in.). All three events had a second top-eight finisher for the T-Birds with Bradie Medina taking second in the pole vault (3.42 meters, 11 ft. – 2.5 in.), Margherita Sala taking third in the hammer throw (46.02 meters, 151 ft. – 0 in.), and Chenessa Davis taking sixth in the high jump (1.53 meters, 5 ft. – 0.25 in.). Both Thompson and Henry added a fifth-place finish in a second event on the day with Thompson recording a mark of 12.64 meters (41 ft. – 5.75 in.) in the shot put and Henry jumping 11.43 meters (37 ft. – 6 in.) in the triple jump. The shot put also had two other top-eight finishers for Cloud County with Adrienne Locke-Garcia finishing sixth (12.59 meters, 41 ft. – 3.75 in.) and Emaleigh Towner taking eighth (11.30 meters, 37 ft. -1 in.).
The remaining points scored by CCCC came on the track and began with a Region VI Championship performance from Ozia Trujillo in the 3,000-meter steeplechase (11:50.70) and was followed by a pair of Region VI Championship performances from N Vanee Anchike (1,500 meters – 4:35.52, 5,000 meters – 17:51.07). The two remaining championship performances came in the 400 meters with Rafiatu Nuhu winning in a time of 54.41 seconds while Nontokozo Ncube took first out of 28 runners in the 800 meters (2:13.92) with both going on to help the 4x400 meter relay team (Lela Singleton, Mercy Angaamchaab, Ncube, and Nuhu) to a runner-up finish in a time of 3:43.79. Angaamchaab went on to earn a second-place finish in the 800 meters with a time of 2:14.66) behind only teammate Ncube while Davis added a fourth-place finish in the 100-meter hurdles (14.71 seconds) and Nuhu a fifth-place finish in the 200 meters (23.83 seconds). The remaining three points came in the 400-meter hurdles from Jaelyn Rumback who ran a time of 1:06.99 to take sixth out of 15 runners.
What's Next?
Just one more meet is on the schedule for Cloud County with the 2024 NJCAA Division I Outdoor Track Championships set to take place May 16-18 on the campus of the University of Louisiana-Monroe in Monroe, Louisiana. A full list of qualified individuals for CCCC will be posted prior to the meet once entries are completed based on qualified athletes in each respective event for the championship meet.