COFFEYVILLE, KAN. – Behind seven top-three finishes on the third and final day of competition, the Cloud County Community College men's track and field team would score 93 points to add to their day two total to finish as NJCAA Region VI Outdoor Track and Field Runners-Up while winning the Kansas Jayhawk Community College Conference West Division Title at Veterans Memorial Stadium in Coffeyville, Kansas.
The Region VI title would come down to a mere point as Barton Community College would edge out Cloud County by scoring 143 points with host Coffeyville (118 points) and Butler (102 points) serving as the other teams to finish with over 100 points of the 15 scored teams. In the KJCCC West scoring, the T-Birds would finish with 221 points to earn a seven-point victory over Barton who finished with 214 points with Hutchinson a distant third with 100 points as part of the eight teams that make up the west division. In individual awards, Cloud County head men's coach Harry Kitchener would be named KJCCC Men's Track and Field Coach of the Year.
Following up a third-place finish in the 10,000 meters on Friday night, sophomore
Kidus Misgina would score another 10 points for CCCC in the second-to-last event of the day on Saturday by winning the 5,000 meters in a time of 15:34.57 to give Cloud County their second NJCAA Region VI individual champion of the meet. Three different T-Birds would score Region VI runner-up finishes in their respective events with
Ben Okraska clearing 4.47 meters (14 ft. 8 in.) in the pole vault,
Siyabonga Mokgothu running a time of 9:46.02 in the 3,000-meter steeplechase, and
Hassan Abidi running a time of 1:52.13 in the 800 meters. Abidi would also run the anchor leg of the 4x400 meter relay team (
Leroy Kamau,
Emmanuel Wanga,
Daniel Siaffa, and Abidi) that would finish second with a season-best time of 3:10.95 for Cloud County's fifth top-two finish of the day.
Other notable performances from CCCC on the track would include a third-place finish from Siaffa in the 400-meter hurdles with a time of 52.46 seconds,
Raziel Patton taking fourth in the 800 meters (1:53.20), a fifth-place finish from Wanga in the 400 meters (48.53 seconds) and sixth-place finish from Kamau in the 200 meters (20.82 seconds). The 4x100 meter relay team (
Emmanuel Anis, Kamau, Wanga, and
Shadrick Tansi) would also snag a fifth-place finish with a time of 41.09 seconds as all three relay teams throughout the weekend would finish in the top five of their respective events.
Remaining top-eight finishes for the T-Birds would come in field events with a third-place finish from
Oageng Mdlela in the triple jump (15.51 meters, 50 ft. – 10.75 in.) coming just ahead of teammate and fourth-place finisher Awakhiwe Ndlovu (50 ft. – 2 in.) while seeing
Arne Roehl clear 1.97 meters (6 ft. – 5.5 in.) in the high jump for a fourth-place finish. Throwing events would also have two top-eight finishers with
Vincent Ugwoke taking fifth in the hammer throw (49.85 meters, 163 ft. – 6 in.) and sixth in the shot put (14.94 meters, 49 ft. – 0.25 in.).
What's Next?
The 2023 NJCAA Division I Outdoor Track and Field Championships is all that's left for Cloud County with the T-Birds heading south and west to Hobbs, New Mexico to take part in the three-day event on the campus of New Mexico Junior College May 18-20. Currently, CCCC is the number five ranked team in the latest United States Track and Field Cross Country Coaches Association poll and has 27 marks that have met the national qualifying standards in their respective events to qualify for the meet with 13 of the marks ranking in the top-10 of their respective events.
