The Iowa Central cross country program competed Saturday at the Woody Greeno/Jay Dirksen Invitational co-hosted by Nebraska Wesleyan and the University of Nebraska. The field consisted of teams from NCAA Div. I, II and NAIA teams.
The top-ranked Tritons placed second overall behind only Iowa and ahead of South Dakota and Nebraska. Iowa Western, ranked seventh in JUCO, finished 12th overall.
The Tritons were again led by sophomore Winrose Chesang, who finished third in a time of 17:20.2 over the 5 kilometer course. Faith Chepengat of Iowa Western was the meet winner with a time of 17:09.1. Chesang was followed closely by sophomore Florance Uwajeneza in sixth (17:38.3), freshman Eleonora Curtabbi in seventh (17:40.5) and Lilian Busienei in 13th (17:58.2).
All seven women competing for the Tritons posted personal best times today and the top four runners all posted times ranking among the Top-10 in school history led by Chesang's time, which is third best.
Running fifth for the women today was freshman Lilia Alvarez of Omaha, NE in a time of 19:38.6. Sophomore's MacKenzie Gaherty and Janet Nyamboneka rounded out the scoring for the Tritons.
"Our top four runners are pretty amazing," Iowa Central's Dee Brown said. "Watching them compete at the front of the pack over 5km with these NCAA Division I runners, gives us a lot of confidence that they are going to do some great things this season. We were fortunate to have every set a personal record this weekend with a hard week of training behind us. We look forward to our next test at the Chile Pepper Festival in two weeks."
The third-ranked Iowa Central men were sixth overall with the Hawkeyes winning the team title followed by Kansas State, Nebraska and Air Force.
Iowa Central was led by sophomore, Awet Yohannes of Sweden. Yohannes finished sixth overall in 24:53.8. George Kusche of Nebraska was the winner of the 8 kilometer race in a time of 24:12.2. Two junior college athletes finished ahead of Yohannes, Dais Malebana of Cloud was third while Shawn Kiptoo of Iowa Western was fifth.
Freshman Eldad Mulugeta of Maryland ran second for the Tritons. He finished 15th overall in a time of 25:242 in his 8km debut. His time ranks among the Top-25 all-time for the Tritons. Two more freshman had solid debuts in Chris Levario (26:09.9) and Noah Friske (26:17.8), both of Illinois, who finished 51st and 57th in the field of 237 runners.
Running fifth through seventh for the Tritons were sophomores, Trevor Ramsdell (68/26:25.4), Milos Pendic (81/26:41.2) and Will Whalen (84/26:43.4).
"We had really hoped we could come out today and beat the top ranked team in the nation," Brown said. "It didn't happen, but we will get another shot in two weeks. A couple of individuals had bad races, it happens, but we also had a number of guys who really stepped it up today. Now we need to see some consistency in their racing over the next month when it counts."
Full results can be found by clicking here.