HOBBS, New Mexico – An eventful two days featuring schedule changes with weather-related delays has not stopped the Cloud County Community College women's and men's track and field teams at the 2023 NJCAA Division I Outdoor Track and Field Championships as the T-Birds will enter the final day action with both teams in the top-three of the team scores at the Ross Black Field of Champions in Hobbs, New Mexico.
 
Limited action on Thursday would see the start of the multi-events (heptathlon and decathlon) before having the women's and men's hammer throw, women's and men's pole vault, and women's 4x800 meter relay completed before lightning and other weather conditions forced the end to day one. An early start on day two would see the action start at 7:30 AM local time with the 10,000 meters with the conclusion of the multi-events and a few other events between the field and track taking place before a second round of weather delays ensued.
 
Heading into Saturday's final day action, the T-Bird women hold a 23.5-point lead over second-place Barton Community College (31.5 points) after scoring 55 points through two days with Iowa Western in third (31 points) and host New Mexico Junior College (25.5 points) in fourth. The men's team scoring features similar scoring through two days with top-ranked South Plains College (51 points) jumping out to a nine-point lead over New Mexico Junior College (42 points) with Cloud County in third (32) just ahead of Barton (28.5 points).
 
Highlighting the first two days of events for CCCC would be three national championship performances coming from three different T-Birds including a monster performance from sophomore Vanessa Mercera in the heptathlon. After a strong opening day on day one which included a school-record performance in the high jump (1.75 meters, 5 ft. – 8.75 in.), Mercera would enter the final event of the heptathlon on day two (800 meters) trailing Antonia Sealy of Iowa Western by 125 points. Running a time of 2:19.25 would allow Mercera to overcome the deficit and pull out a 39-point win by finishing with 5,260 points, the ninth-best heptathlon performance of all-time in the NJCAA.
 
Also scoring a national title would be freshman Jasmine Sakaguchi in the pole vault by clearing 3.67 meters (12 ft. – 0.5 in.) to best a 12-competitor field which included a third-place finish from sophomore teammate Mia Manley (3.57 meters, 11 ft. – 8.5 in.) to give Cloud County two of the top-three finishers in the event. After expecting to run the final event of day one in the 10,000 meters, sophomore Lucy Ndungu would rise to the occasion of an early wake-up call on Friday morning to go and compete in her first event of the weekend and run a time of 38:12.10 to win the event by 10 seconds over her next closest competitor and give the T-Birds their third national title performance.
 
Other big performances for the Cloud County women would include a third-place finish on Friday from Melody Ochana in the 3,000-meter steeplechase after running a personal-best time of 11:35.00. Eclipsing her own school record from just a day prior, Mercera would raise the bar once again by clearing 1.76 meters (5 ft. – 9.25 in.) in the high jump to take second place in the individual event while seeing Miracle Thompson run the top qualifying time in the 100-meter hurdles (13.33 seconds) to qualify for Saturday's final. CCCC would also have the 4x800 meter relay team of Mary Kua, Ochana, Passion Crews, and Aina Goir combine to run a time of 9:47.27 on Thursday for a fourth-place finish to add to the team scoring total while the 4x400 meter relay team (Mercera, Crews, Lela Singleton, and Vimbayi Maisvorewa) would turn in a school-record time of 3:41.93 in the preliminary round to qualify in fourth for Saturday's finals.
 
For the Cloud County men, 13 of their 32 team points would come from the decathlon duo of Anson Moses and Hemon Joseph as the two would manage to work through the 10-event competition to earn a second and fourth-place finish, respectively. Joseph would win the shot put (12.62 meters, 41 ft. – 4.75 in.) and javelin (60.92 meters, 199 ft. – 10 in.) of the competition while Moses would win the pole vault (4.05 meters, 13 ft. – 3.5 in.) along with second-place finishes in the long jump, 400 meters, and 110-meter hurdles to total 6,666 points over the 10 events for a national runner-up finish.
 
Adding six points to the team scoring total for the T-Birds would be sophomore Ben Okraska in the pole vault after clearing 4.82 meters (15 ft. – 9.75 in.) for a new personal-best performance in his only event of the championship. Also in field events, Vincent Ugwoke would record a mark of 59.37 meters (194 ft. – 9 in.) in the discus to take fourth out of 19 competitors in an event that would see a new NJCAA all-time best mark recorded by national champion Brandon Lloyd of Barton. Two other top-eight finishes by CCCC through the first two days would see Kidus Misgina turn in a time of 31:04.28 in the 10,000 meters on Friday morning before seeing Raziel Patton, Siyabonga Mokgothu, Hassan Abidi, and Quwayne Reid run a time of 7:43.78 in the 4x400 meters to take sixth.
 
What's Next?
With the delays that have taken place over the previous two due to weather, numerous changes have been made to the final day schedule to allow all events to get completed for the championship. Action is expected to start at 10 AM local time with 16 events taking place throughout the day and concluding in the late afternoon to crown team national champions.