LINCOLN, Neb. - The Iowa Central men's cross country team flexed their might here Saturday at the 31st annual Greeno/Dirksen Invitational.
Behind second and third place finishes by Kelvin Bungei and Aspel Kiprob, the Tritons claimed the Gold division title. Iowa Central finished with 48 points, four ahead of Northwest Missouri. Colby, Iowa Western and Cloud County rounded out the Top-5.
"It was a fantastic day today for the Tritons," Iowa Central head coach Dee Brown said. "All of our women ran one to two minutes faster than just last week in Decorah. It was exciting to see them drop so much time, it shows that their hard work so far this season is paying dividends."
Bungei, who was first at the Hawkeye Invitational and Luther All-American the past two weeks, clocked in at 24:05.1. Iowa Western's Nicholas Kiprotich was the race winner in 24:00.5.
Kiprob, second to Bungei last weekend, was third in 24:08.7. Zander Cobb placed 13th in 24:35, Hunter Klimek was 37th in 25:29, Yared Kidane finished 64th in 26:11 and Brady Hogan was 66th in 26:14.
"The men had an amazing 8km debut, proving that they are deserving of their No. 2 national ranking," Brown said. "They followed our race plan well and moved up throughout the entire competition. Kelvin and Aspel ran the third and fifth fastest times in school history while Zander ran the 14th fastest."
On the women's side, Iowa Central placed fifth overall in the Gold division, which was won by Northwest Missouri. Hastings, Benedictine and Doane were just ahead of the Tritons.
Chloe Garcia-Grafing clocked a time of 18:30.7 to place 30th overall. Zinash Valen was 87th in 19:32 and Taylor McCreedy placed 101st in 19:51.
"We went head-to-head with some of the top-ranked competition in the NJCAA and came out on top with both squads," Brown said. "We will take the 'win' and get right back to work. We have two big weeks of training ahead of us before our next test."
Up next on the schedule for the Tritons will be the Chili Pepper Festival in Fayetteville, Arkansas on Friday, October 1 and the Dan Huston Invitational in Waverly on Saturday, October 2.
-By Dana Becker