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By JOCELYN SHEETS Allen County Community College's cross country athletes, who are all freshmen, "wowed" their head coach with their season-opening performances at home Friday. The Red Devils hosted the ACCC Invitational on campus Friday evening. The Red Devil men placed five in the top 15 individual places, all earning medals. There were 46 runners in the men's 5K race. Allen County only has three women runners and one stayed right with the top runners from Butler County and Cowley County. Butler County won the women's team title as the Lady Grizzlies scored 21 points and went 1-2 in the 2-mile run. "I was not expecting to do as well as we did as a whole. I figured we would have a few individuals do well but not as many as we have," said Vince DeGrado, ACCC cross country coach. "For our men, there was only 25 seconds difference between our No. 1 runner and our No. 5 runner. If we can have a pack time like that in the 8K, we'll be tough to contend with." Butler County took the men's title also with 30 points, followed by Cowley County with 44 points. Allen County finished third as a team with 52 points. Neosho County was fourth with 108 points and Coffeyville was in fifth at 151. Cowley County's freshman Stanley Mugo was the men's individual champion with a time of 16 minutes, 7.2 seconds. Butler County's Stephen Gicharu, a freshman, was second at 16:29.1 followed by sophomore teammates Jay Lindal and Matt Gordon in 16:50 and 16:56. Cowley County freshman Mauricio Morales rounded out the top five in 17:11.
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| Aaron Farris led the ACCC pack as he took sixth in 17:25.9. Caleb Smith was eighth in 17:30.7 followed by David Marsh in ninth in 17:32. Justin Maggard and Mason Benn finished 14th and 15th, respectively, in 17:49.6 and 17:50.
Scott Carney took 19th in 18:31.8 as ACCC had another pack further back. Paul Fisher came across in 21st in 18:33.9 followed by Casey Corbett in 22nd at 18:37.1. Matt Silovsky was 26th in 18:55.3 and Kevin Holland placed 30th in 19:16.1.
DeGrado said he had the feeling that the Red Devil men's No. 1 runner will change each meet. The ACCC men have strong competition with each other in practices, he said. Butler County's women dominated their race, taking five of the top seven individual places led by sophomores Maggie Kimani and Alyson Siegrist. Kimani won the race in 11:59.7 with Siegrist in second at 12:00.6. Two Cowley County women, both freshmen, were third and fourth. Jennifer Cherono finished in 12:27.9 and Ashley Cronin ran the race in 12:43.6. A trio of Butler County freshmen were next led by Shanda Anderson, 12:46.6, followed by Dale Page, 12:56.4, and Christina Addison in 13:00.4. Allen County's Arely Pastor kept pace with the leaders throughout the 2-mile race. Pastor finished in eighth place in 13:15.3. Mariposa Dopp was 24th in 16:34 and Kristin Stranghoner was 25th in 19:19. "Arely was a big surprise. She didn't get to run cross country last year because of the transfer rules in Missouri. She is really running well. Butler County and Cowley County's women's teams will easily be ranked in the top 10 and to have Arely finish where she did was pretty impressive," DeGrado said. DeGrado said Dopp was starting to get into competition shape and Stranghoner is battling a health issue right now. "Once Kristin gets healthy and Mari gets into better shape, we'll see the improvements." Allen County is off this week. The Red Devils compete at the Friends University Invitational in Goddard on Sept. 8. |
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