LEVELLAND — The South Plains College men's and women's cross country teams will compete in their final meet of the season on Saturday as they look to grasp national gold at the NJCAA Div. I Cross Country National Championships.
The men's 8k is slated to begin at 11 a.m. MT, followed by the women's 5k at noon. The race will be run at the University of New Mexico Golf Course in Albuquerque., and live results will be available at the following link with a full recap to follow the race at spctexans.com.
Live results: https://www.athlinks.com/event/177465/results/Event/881327/Results
After winning the Region V title in their previous meet in Snyder, the Lady Texans enter the weekend ranked third in the country in the latest USTFCCCA national poll, defeating No. 7 New Mexico Junior College and No. 8 El Paso CC at the Region meet.
The Lady Texans finished with a final team score of 35 in Snyder, a final team time of 1:37:55.9, with an average time of 19:35.18..Sophomore All-American Gladys Jemaiyo led South Plains with a final time of 18:42.66, good enough for second place overall.
Freshman Daisy Kibet earned a fourth-place finish with a time of 18:54.11 for the Lady Texans, while sophomore Dorcus Ewoi was fifth in a time of 19:09.09.Itzel Garcia-Santos earned a 10th place finish for South Plains as the sophomore from Veracruz, Mexico clocked a final time of 20:15.15, while Angela Rodriguez placed 18th in a time of 21:39.88.
Battling a number of injuries throughout the season, the Texans will compete with three runners on Saturday as they look to play spoiler for the rest of the field. The Texans placed two runners in the top 11 at the Region V meet including sophomore Alex Kitum who led the Texans with a sixth-place overall finish with a time of 27:05.20. Freshman Abdirizak Ibrahim posted a time of 28:00.00 to take 11th overall as the duo hopes to find itself in the top 10 come Saturday.
Meet history: http://www.ustfccca.org/meets-results/meet-history?series=3490
Meet info: https://www.njcaa.org/sports/mxc/2019-20/div1/national_championship/index