T-Birds (WXC) Finishes Runner-Up for Second Straight Year
The NMJC women's cross country team finished runner-up for the second consecutive year at the NJCAA DI Women's Cross Country 5k Championships in Huntsville, Ala., at John Hunt Park on Saturday, Nov. 11.
The T-Birds posted a team score of 93 points to place second behind national champion Salt Lake. The Bruins finished 46 points in front of NMJC with 47 overall points. Iowa Western was third with 102 points and CSI was fourth with 134 points.
Damaris Chewon was the top finisher for the T-Birds on the women's side. The Kapsabet, Kenya native finished in third place at the NJCAA Cross Country Championships for the second straight season. Her career-best 17:37.90 finish was 2.5 seconds behind second place and 17 seconds behind the champion Silvia Gradizzi of Iowa Western. Chewon picked up NJCAA All-American and USTFCCCA All-American honors for the second consecutive season with her performance.
"Damaris did really well and you know the two runners that beat her are very talented," women's cross country head coach Jeff Becker said. "She also beat some talented runners Saturday as well. It was probably a stronger field this year than last year and she was still able to finish in third place. She has had a great career for us from the track to everything she's done in cross country, so she will be missed at NMJC."
Jayne Elvin was the second runner across for the T-Birds. Elvin finished in 13th place with a career-best time of 18:22.60. The finish earned the freshman NJCAA All-American and USTFCCCA All-American honors.
Vanessa Gallegos came in 19th place with a career-best time of 18:36.10. The sophomore's time earned her USTFCCCA All-American honors.
Carolyne Kimaiyo crossed the finish line in a career-best 18:45.40 to finish in 24th place. Kimaiyo's time earned the sophomore USTFCCCA All-American honors. Lisanne Schapendonk rounded out the team scoring with a 34th place finish of 19:02.50. Schapendonk's time was a career-best for the freshman.
Jody Ann Mitchell finished in 39th place with a career-best time of 19:19.00. Morgan Waltmire was the final runner for the T-Birds. The sophomore ran a career-best 19:54.70.
The runner-up performance in 2023 is tied for the best finish in school history with the 2022 and 2019 teams.
"I had a good feeling with the ladies that they were going to run fast and we were going to come close to having personal best finishes for almost every woman out there because they've been training really hard," Becker said. "We haven't had the competition in the middle part to later part of the races this season because of the smaller meets we attend. So, I knew that if they got challenged by other strong runners at nationals that was going to help pull them along to a better time."
The season is not over just yet. NMJC will have four runners competing in the NJCAA Half Marathon on Tuesday, Nov. 14 at 9 a.m. CDT in Huntsville Ala., at John Hunt Park.
The half marathon is similar to cross country with the exception that only three runners are scored compared to five in cross country. The fourth runner can be used to break ties.
"The ladies finished second last year in the half marathon," Becker said. "The only difference with the ladies is we do have a few that are not going to run because we do have some slight injuries there. We are holding out a couple of runners just because running 13.1 miles on an injury is not good for the upcoming track season".
The lineup should look different with only four runners for the T-Birds competing.
"So we're only actually running four ladies for the half marathon," Becker said. "We'll be led by Damaris so we're excited to see what she can do up front there. Then we have Vanessa, Morgan, and Lisanne running, so we'll have four ladies overall."
Half Marathon Live Results here.
