Eight KJCCC XC Runners Earn NJCAA All-American Status, Eight Teams Earn Top-10 Finish At Nationals

D1 Men’s Results | D2 Men’s Results | D1 Women’s Results | D2 Women’s Results

RICHMOND, Va. – Eight runners from the Kansas Jayhawk Community College Conference have earned NJCAA Cross Country All-American honors as the conference was led by a National Runner-Up finish from Hutchinson’s Faith Jepchirchir and third-place finish from Butler’s Emmanuel Otim at the 2024 NJCAA Cross Country Championships in Richmond, Virginia.

Eight men’s teams and eight women’s teams recorded scores at the Division 1 and 2 National Championship meets held at Pole Green Park on Saturday, November 9th with the best team finishes coming in the Division 1 Men’s Championship race with Hutchinson earning a podium finish by taking third with 94 total points to edge out Butler who finished fourth with 125 total points. The top women’s score came from Hutchinson as well with the Blue Dragon women finishing sixth while Cloud County and Butler joined HCC in the top 10 of the Division 1 women’s team scores by coming in ninth and 10th, respectively, while the Cowley women finished eighth in the Division 2 Women’s Championship race.

As part of the sixth-place team finish for the Hutchinson women, Blue Dragon freshman Faith Jepchirchir added to her historic season taking second on the 5,000-meter course out of 184 runners in the field with a time of 17:15.0, just eight seconds back of individual National Champion Elizabeth Ilanda of Odessa College. Joining Jepchirchir with All-America honors was Cloud County’s N Vanee Anchike who took eighth with a time of 17:48.80 as the sophomore improved upon her 10th place finish in 2023 to earn her second All-American honors.

Top-finishing men’s runners included the individual podium finish for NJCAA Region 6 Individual Champion Otim who took third with a time of 23:36.50 on the 8,000-meter course as the top four runners in the race were separated by less than 10 seconds. JaQuavious Harris (Salt Lake) was the 2024 individual National Champion in the Division 1 race with a time of 23:30.7 as the KJCCC added three more All-Americans with Hutchinson’s Titus Kiprotich (ninth - 23:57.9) and Dennis Cheruiyot (10th – 23:57.9) along with Kabelo Maja of Fort Hays Tech Northwest (15th – 24:08.2) led the way for the conference.

In the team scoring of the Division 1 men’s race, Hutchinson finished nine points back of National Runner-Up Iowa Western while Salt Lake won their first team National Title with a score of 52 points as all five scoring runners finished in the top 20. Butler had three runners finish in the top 30 to earn the fourth-place finish while Fort Hays Tech Northwest used Maja’s 15th-place finish to finish 10th as NJCAA Region 6 was one of two Regions with three teams finishing in the top 10 (Region 5).

Cowley was the lone scoring team from the KJCCC in the Division 2 National Championship races as the Tiger men took eighth with 257 points after a sixth-place finish last year with sophomore Miquel Cruz taking fourth individually with a time of 25:31.20 to earn first-team All-American honors. Also earning All-American accolades was Esteban Boisseau who ran a time of 25:48.9 to finish 11th while Leonardo Flores of Allen finished just outside the top 15 by placing 18th (26:04.10).

The Cowley women also finished eighth after winning the NJCAA Division 2 National Title last year, earning a total of 324 points and were led by Kayli Myers who placed 26th with a time of 19:42.90 to be the top-finishing runner from the conference in the race while Lillyan Gerow (Allen) took 34th with a time of 19:51.1 to give the conference two runners to finish inside the top-40.