October 16, 2006                    

Cowley cross country teams win Ollie Isom Invitational

With Daniel Maina and Irene Kosgei winning the men and women’s races at the Ollie Isom Invitational held Friday in El Dorado, both Cowley College cross country teams finished first at the meet.

The Cowley men, fifth in the NJCAA rankings, finished one point ahead of second place Garden City, while the fourth-ranked Lady Tigers finished in a tie with Butler County for first place at the meet.

“Any time you can win a meet it’s great, but we’ve still got the big meets ahead of us and we’ll get refocused for regional and nationals,” Cowley assistant head coach Ryan Turner said. “We used this meet as an opportunity for a quality workout and to compete against some good teams. I’ve thought all along that the Garden City men have the talent to run better then they’ve been running and they showed us that they’re a quality team and gave us some great competition.”

Maina won the men’s 5,000-meter race with a time of 15:05.4.

“Daniel is continuing to improve each week,” Turner said. “This meet he went out in 4:32 for the first mile then settled in and cruised just running hard enough to win for the rest of the race.”

Cowley’s Stanley Mugo finished third with a time of 15:26.3, while Dustin Garcia (16:15.5) and Mauricio Morales (16:23.8) placed eighth and 11th, respectively.

“Dustin and Mo (Mauricio Morales) ran well,” Turner said. “Mo shows us in practice he can run with Dustin and it’s nice to see that he’s racing with him again.”

Kosgei won the women’s two-mile race with a time of 11:21.4. Cowley’s Jeniffer Cherono (11:42.6) and Ashley Cronin (12:08.8) also ran well and placed third and fourth, respectively.

“Our women ran really well, it was exciting seeing three of our girls place in the top four,” Turner said. “I would like to see our gap between our number three girl and our number five girl close a little. Fifty seconds is too big of a gap, that’s something we’ll have to address and improve on in the next two meets.”

The Tiger cross country teams will now prepare to compete at the Jayhawk Conference/Region VI Championships Monday in Overland Park.

“I believe that there are four men’s teams and three women’s teams that have a realistic shot at winning the region title and I think our men and women are in that hunt,” Turner said. “The region competition is tougher then it’s been in a long time.”

Team standings:

MEN

(1) Cowley, 36; (2) Garden City, 37; (3) Butler, 64; (4) Pratt, 103; (5) Johnson County, 120; (6) Wichita State, no team score.

WOMEN

(1tie) Cowley, 48; (1tie) Butler, 48; (3) Wichita State, 52; (4) Garden City, 72; (5) Emporia State, 137; (6) Fort Scott, no team score; (7) Wichita State, no team score.

Cowley men’s results: (1) Daniel Maina, 15:05.4; (3) Stanley Mugo, 15:26.3; (8) Dustin Garcia, 16:15.4; (11) Mauricio Morales, 16:23.8; (14) Ferrien Harris, 16:37.7; (17) Brett Koehn, 16:47.1; (23) Gilbert Manzanares, 17:00.5; (30) Alex Werner, 17:27.5; (36) Dakota Price, 17:56.5; (38) Dustin Pempsell, 18:03.6.

Cowley women’s results: (1) Irene Kosgei, 11:21.4; (3) Jeniffer Cherono, 11:42.6; (4) Ashley Cronin, 12:08.8; (19) Patricia Dailey, 12:48.9; (21) Bethany Schmidt, 12:58.6; (23) Christy Buller, 13:04.2; (28) Brenna Martinez, 13:47.3; (32) Dawn Zimmerman, 14:04.4; (36) Hannah Burr, 14:39.3; (40) Kim Bryant, 15:21.8.