FAYETTEVILLE, AR -  The NJCAA Division 1, number two ranked Iowa Central men's team showed well at the Chile Pepper Festival this past weekend with a fourth place finish out of 33 teams representing NCAA Division I, II, NAIA and the NJCAA.  The #16 University of Arkansas won their home meet with a score of 61 points followed by NJCAA #1 ranked Colby Community College with 149 points. In third place was the NCAA Division II, sixth ranked Missouri Southern at 157 points followed by the Tritons with 166 points.  

Iowa Central was led defending NJCAA Half Marathon Champion and NJCAA record holder, Aspel Kiprob in 16^th place with a time of 24:17.9. Teammate Housem Hrabi was close behind in 22^nd at 24:26.2. Hrabi's time is the twelfth fastest in school history.  A pair of 2021 NJCAA Cross Country All-Americans were the next two runners across the line for the Tritons. Yared Kidane finished 36^th overall in a personal best of 24:39.4 followed by Zander Cobb in 52^nd place with a time of 24:50.8.

Running fifth for Iowa Central was Aye Devany of Katy, TX at 24:53.8 in 54^th place. Transfer, Will Sacay of MN finished in 98th place with a time of 25:17.0. Completing the scoring was sophomore, Brady Hogan of Decorah, IA in 117^th place at 25:26.2. Devany, Sacay and Hogan all ran personal best times.

At one mile, the Tritons were sitting in 12^th place overall as a team. They moved up as high as third place by 5.5 km. Even though the Tritons closed well over the last 2.5km, Missouri Southern closed stronger to finish third in the team standings and bump Iowa Central to fourth overall.

"Mentally, we were really focused on running well this weekend when we knew we would have an opportunity to run on a fast course among some great competition.  Our hard work we have put in the past eight weeks has really paid dividends.  If you compare Colby's (NJCAA #1) 107-point gap on us two weeks ago in Nebraska to what we did today, that is a great barometer of progress. Our team looked stronger and moved up the entire 8 kilometers to finish only 17 points out of second place," said Director of XC/TF, Dee Brown.

Six Iowa Central runners finished among the top-50 in school history, while 15 of the 21 Triton runners ran personal bests.

The women's team competed in the Prairie Fire Pepper race, finishing 18^th of 34 teams, only one other NJCAA program finished ahead of the Tritons. Iowa Central competed without two of their top-five runners but still saw some significant gains.  Sophomore, Taylor McCreedy finished in fifth place overall with a personal best time of 18:27.2 which ranks her among the top-25 all-time in school history. Zinash Valen finished in 63^rd place with a time of 19:55.7 followed by Britney Brown in 86^th at 20:23.9. Rounding out the scoring for Iowa Central were Kenzie Kaperka in 183^rd with a time of 22:23.1 and Brook Haley in 207^th with a time of 22:58.0.

"Despite not running our full squad, I was impressed with what I saw. Taylor had the race of her life so far. Each week she looks stronger and more confident. It was fun watching her up at the front of such a big race the entire time.  I can't say enough about the transformation of Brook, Britney and Kenzie. They three of them ran life-time bests and averaged a minute improvement overall," said Brown.

The Tritons will return to action at the Jim Drews/Tori Neubauer Invitationals hosted by the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse in two weeks in West Salem, WI. The men will race 8-kilometers while the women compete at 6-kilometers at their final regular season competition.