Men’s Cross Country Punch Ticket to Nationals with Third-Place Finish at Central Region Championships
JOPLIN, Mo. – The East Central University men's cross country team delivered another strong performance at the NCAA Division II Central Region Championships, hosted by Missouri Southern State University in Joplin on Saturday. The Tigers rose to the occasion once again, earning an automatic berth to the NCAA DII National Championships with a third-place team finish out of 30 in the 10k race.
Northwest Missouri captured the regional title, while Washburn edged out ECU for the runner-up spot. With the result, the Tigers secured their third straight trip to the NCAA DII National Championships, set for Saturday, Nov. 22, in Kenosha, Wisconsin.
"It was a dogfight the whole way with the top 5 teams!" Head Coach
Steve Sawyer said. "I felt we could have done better. However, it's hard to be upset when you punch a ticket to the National Championship. Survive and advance, right? We set a goal to win a third region title in a row and came up short. So, we are not happy about that. But we most definitely gave it a shot as we were winning throughout most of the race. At the 2K mark we were in front and at 7K we were 3 points behind the eventual winner. I'm happy we didn't shy away and tried to get the win. We will look to do better in two weeks at Nationals!"
Leading the charge for ECU was the trio of
Kennedy Bett,
Peter Kipkemboi, and
Paul Korir, who all delivered top-15 finishes to claim All-Region honors. Bett paced the Tigers with a strong 10th-place finish in 30:54.68, followed closely by Kipkemboi in 13th (31:02.55) and Korir in 14th (31:03.56).
Donald Kipsang added key points with a 32nd-place finish in 31:37.27, while
Bhekizulu Khumalo rounded out the scoring five in 49th at 32:08.79. Also competing for the Tigers were
Brian Mitei (50th / 32:10.62) and
Aspel Kiprob (65th / 32:53.53).
With momentum on their side, the Tigers now set their sights on the NCAA DII National Championships in Kenosha, where they'll look to make their mark on the national stage once again.
