Garden City cross country competes in stack field
The Garden City cross country team competed in the Chile Pepper Festival hosted by the University of Arkansas.
The Broncobuster women took to the dry and dusty course first, competing against a stacked field of 275 runners.
Shareen Cheruiyot led the Broncbusters with a 12th place finish with a time of 18:50.6, a new personal best for her. Teammate Valentine Lagat wasn't far behind as she finished 36th place with a season best time of 19:26.4.
Freshman Sara Chapa had a breakthrough performance, placing 126th place with a new personal best time of 21:05.6; (almost a minute faster than any performance so far this season)
Taylor Thorp ran a 15 second improvement to finish with a new personal best of 22:42.3,; placing 196th.
Jania Don Juan rounded out the team scoring with a 222nd place finish with a time of 23:26.4.
Rebecca Potts also had a stellar performance for the Broncbusters. Potts had a minute improvement to set a new personal best with a time of 24:02.5; placing 235th
Andrea Serrano placed 250th with a time of 24:51.1.
Team scoring, Garden City placed 21st out of 34 teams with 526 points.
"Our Women's team had a great day," Head Coach, Chris Real said. "They fed off of the energy of the meet and made the right moves during the race to put themselves in great positions. I was really with their finish as a team; they were up against some very solid Division 1, Division 2, NAIA, as well as JUCO Programs but to finish within the mix as well as be only 32 points away from #5 Nationally Ranked Iowa Central gives me a lot of confidence that this team is on track to some big things come championship season."
As the men took to the course, the temperature and humidity spiked, providing an extra challenge to the 355-runner field.
Kelvin Cheruiyot got out quick and stuck with the lead pack. Cheruiyot battled hard but fell back to finish in 4th place with a time of 25:41.6.
Jose "Froy" Ruiz ran a season best time of 28:19.5; placing 130th while teammate Matthew Veloz continued his personal best streak by placing 136th with a time of 28:22.6; roughly a 20 second improvement.
Zaccerie Penka placed 232nd with a time of 30:06.3, Ricardo Mijares was close behind to round out team scoring; placing 236th with a time of 30:08.7.
Daniel Aguilar placed 248th with a time of 30:27.6, Rosalio Ruiz placed 261st with a time of 30:54.5, Daegan VanPelt placed 302nd with a time of 32:58.3, and Edgar Ruiz placed 317th with a time of 34:04.3.
The men's team placed 25th out 38 teams with 617 points.
"It wasn't the most ideal showing we had hoped for," Real said. "From the start of the race our men had to battle with positioning as well as overcoming getting cut off from groups and finding our rhythm...unfortunately these are things you deal with in championship-style races. We are taking this as a learning lesson and going to use this to fuel ourself for the last half of this season."