T-Bird (WXC) Places 3rd at Nationals, Kachouri & Silva Earn NJCAA All-American Honors

The NMJC women's cross country team earned a third-place trophy Saturday, Nov. 9 at the NJCAA DI Cross Country 5k Championships in Richmond, VA.

The T-Birds headed into the race ranked the No. 6 team in the country according to the USTFCCCA Coaches Poll. NMJC finished third with a team score of 109 points behind Iowa Central CC in second place (106 points), and national champion Salt Lake (55 points). 

"I believe they all had season bests and almost all of them had personal bests," NMJC women's cross country head coach Jeff Becker said. "I think they went out there and they believed in themselves. We had talked about it for quite a while, how we felt like we were one of the best teams, but we were getting ranked low. They felt like they had something to prove, and they went out there and they just ran really tough. I don't know if we could have done much more than what we did. One thing I told them was go work your way up and get into the position you want, and they did that, and they just hung on and finished well."

Amal Kachouri had a career day finishing in 10th place at the cross country championships on Saturday. Kachouri's time of 17:50.10 was a 29.40 second personal-best. The Sfax, Tunisia native has now moved up two spots from No. 7 to No. 5 in the all-time 5k records for the Thunderbirds. Kachouri picked up NJCAA All-American and USTFCCCA All-American honors with her performance. 

Emilly Silva had an outstanding 12th-place performance for NMJC vaulting to the No. 2 spot in the lineup with a personal record 17:53.10. The time was good enough to rank her sixth on the NMJC all-time 5k list with an improvement of 1:30.90 compared to her last race. The finish earned the sophomore transfer NJCAA All-American and USTFCCCA All-American honors.

"It was a good surprise. I knew Emily had been training well. She went ran well at regionals. She had a lot of confidence, which I think helped," Becker said. She felt like she just had something to prove. Last year she ran okay when she ran for Vincennes, but she felt like this year she had a chance to contribute for a trophy. She just had a great mindset. Started out typical where she went out a little bit slow and just kept on coming and ended up finishing really well."

Freshman Ines Mrabet came in 17th place with a personal-best time of 17:57.40. Her time improved from regionals by 1:14.30. The Tunis, Tunisia native now sits No. 7 all-time on the NMJC 5k list. Mrabet's performance earned her USTFCCCA All-American honors.

"Like we had talked about, in order for us to be effective, we also needed the No. 1 (Amal) and then, and what now would be No. 3 (Ines) to run well and be close together and they were seven seconds apart as where at regionals we were a minute or almost a minute gap. So, they definitely closed that gap and had great races." 

Jayne Elvin placed 31st with a time of 18:28.10 in her final cross country race with the T-Birds. Elvin's season-best time was 47 seconds better than what she ran at regionals and was just six seconds off her career-best finish. 

Zimbabwean Lisel Ndlovu crushed her last race this meet by 1:15.30 when she came across the line in 18:41.80 for a personal-best finish. The time earned her 41st place at the championships as she was the final runner to count toward the Thunderbird team score. Sophomore Francesca Alvarado was one spot behind in 42nd Place. Alvarado crossed the finish line 18:43.80, which was 1:43.50 better than her regionals time and a career best.

"We dropped back a little bit to No. 4 and No. 5, but not by much," Coach Becker said. "Then what helped us too is our No. 6 was right there with our No. 5. Even though six doesn't count in the team scoring our sixth place runner can displace other runners. When everybody goes out there and runs their season best I mean you can't ask for more than that."

Hadil Chiha was the final runner for the Thunderbirds at the NJCAA DI Cross Country Championships. Chiha placed 53rd with a time of 19:12.50. The Kairouan, Tunisia native's time was a personal-best by 34.30 seconds.

The Thunderbirds will compete in the 2024 NJCAA Half Marathon at Dorey Park starting at 9 a.m. EST in Richmond, VA. Live results can be found here. There will be no stream.