Region VI Indoor Results   |   KJCCC West Indoor Results

PITTSBURG, Kan. – The culmination of a year of dedication and hard work has paid off for the Cloud County Community College men's track and field team as the T-Birds returned to the top of the NJCAA Region VI Indoor Track and Field Championship team standings by edging out Barton Community College and reigning Region VI Indoor Track and Field team Champion Fort Scott to claim the 2024 title inside the Robert W. Plaster Center in Pittsburg, Kansas on Sunday, February 18th.
 
With last year's team title being decided by one-half point with 33 hundredths of a second separating Fort Scott and Cloud County in the final event of the meet in 2023 and deciding the team champion, the T-Birds did not take any chances this year by clinching the team title before the 4x400 relay and finishing with a total of 127 points to beat out the 119 point total scored by Barton and 114 point total scored by Fort Scott. Butler also finished with over 100 points by taking fourth (101 points) with Hutchinson in a distant fifth with 73 total points among the 14 teams who earned a team score in the meet.
 
Resuming action bright and early with the final three events of the heptathlon, Cloud County had the trio of Brandon Hutchinson, Kevin Brooks and Ifeanyichukwu Aninze back in action with a win in the 60-meter hurdles for Hutchinson (8.17 seconds) being followed by a fourth-place finish in the pole vault after clearing 3.48 meters (11 ft. – 5 in.) to get back in the thick of the championship race. Brooks managed to take fifth in the 60-meter hurdles before being unable to record a mark in the pole vault that likely proved to be the difference in winning a Region VI Championship as a fourth-place finish in the 1,000 meters (2:54.58) allowed the freshman to finish with 4,366 points to take fifth. As for Hutchinson, the sophomore ran a time of 3:16.65 in the 1,000 meters and finished with 4,503 points to take second in the event just 61 points back of the 2024 Region VI Champion in Brayden Bergkamp of Dodge City.
 
The first of three of Region VI individual championship performances for the T-Birds on Sunday came in the high jump as Corey Ottey tied for the Region VI title in the high jump after clearing 1.99 meters (6 ft. – 6.25 in.) to score the remaining 10 points in field events by CCCC on day two of the meet with the final 90 points of the day coming on the track. Starting the track events in a big way was the 4x800 relay team of Ishmael Acheampoing, Siyabonga Mokgothu, Andres Young, and Nichalas Power as the four combined for a time of 7:46.31 to win the event and get Cloud County back into the team race after entering the day in seventh and 18 points back of Barton as Hutchinson followed with a fourth-place finish in the 60 meter hurdles (8.20 seconds) for his final event of the day.
 
A fourth-place finish from Kamogelo Thipe in the 600 meters (1:20:60) was joined by an eighth-place finish from Young (1:22.59) in the event to give CCCC another six points towards the team score with Mokgothu (4:16.30) running a Region VI runner-up time in the mile run alongside a fifth-place finish from Nirmit Dahiya (4:19.50) as the points continued to come in bunches for the T-Birds. One of the biggest scoring events of the day for Cloud County was two events later with Power (second, 1:53.80), Thipe (fourth, 1:54.57), and Acheampong (fifth, 1:55.13) all finishing in the top five of the 800 meters to set up the final three events of the day for the T-Birds knowing that a strong finish could allow CCCC to leap into the lead. The 3,000 meters did just that as Mokgothu won the Region VI title with a time of 8:38.58 while seeing Dahiya take fourth (8:44.68) to give Cloud County another 15 points to move into the lead.
 
With just two events remaining, the T-Birds clinched the team title in the 1,000 meters as Power ran a season-best time of 2:29.41 seconds to win an individual Region VI title to beat out teammates Thipe (third, 2:30.06) and Acheampong (fifth, 2:32.72) to give CCCC another 20 points to put Cloud County 11 points clear of Barton with the max that the Cougars could score in the final event being 10 points with a win and no way to reclaim the lead. Having already clinched the team title, the T-Birds made a change to their 4x400 meter relay team with Bradley Nkosi, Ottey, Brooks, and Young joining together to run the event and finish with a sixth-place time of 3:18.50 as the additional three points were put towards the final team score and the final margin of victory of eight points after seeing Barton relay team finish the event in third.
 
With the Region VI Indoor Title, Cloud County has now won five of the past six NJCAA Region VI Indoor Track Championships and has not finished lower than second at the indoor championship meet dating back to the 2017 season.  
 
What's Next?
The 2024 indoor track and field season will conclude with one final meet coming on March 1-2 with the 2024 NJCAA Indoor Track and Field Championships set to take place in Gainesville, Florida on the campus of the University of Florida. An official list of T-Bird athletes set to compete in the two-day meet will be released during the week of the meet as CCCC will look to cap off another strong year with a top finish on the national stage.