SIOUX FALLS, SD – Hitting the trail under the lights once again, the Cloud County Community College cross country teams would be led by Dais Malebana and Maryse Mbenoun at the Augustana Twilight Meet hosted by Augustana University at Yankton Trail Park in Sioux Falls, South Dakota on Friday.
The women would have three runners total and would not post a team score in the 25-plus team meet that featured a mix of NCAA Division I, II, III, NAIA and NJCAA programs while the men would come away with third out of 26 scored teams.
“As a team on the men’s side we had our overall split at about 90 seconds which is what we’ve been working on in practice as we had a strong showing tonight” said head coach Drew Mahin in a post-meet interview. “For the women, Maryse Mbenoun showed well tonight in her second cross country meet in her career as our top finisher is continuing to see good things come as she continues to work.” “We’re excited to see how our women progress throughout the year as we have yet to compete as a full team but know that good things will happen once at full strength.” “Dais Malebana for the men ran under control and is a high-level racer that is able to keep his composure and stay the course to win the race for the second-straight week against high-level competition.” “We were also happy to see Saba Khvichava run well and come away with a finish in the top five of a meet with a lot of strong teams and runners which we will see again in a few weeks at the Woody Greeno Invitational.”
With the women running as individualists, Mbenoun would lead the T-Birds by posting a time of 20:13.26 while Kya Johnson would come in seconds later at 20:28.88 on the 5K course. Ludjenie Mondesir also competed for Cloud County on the women’s side, posting a time of 20:46.31 as the trio would finish in the top seven amongst junior college runners in the meet.
Leading the men with a victory for the second-straight week would be Malebana as the freshman posted a time of 18:54.46 to edge out Mason Phillips of the University of Sioux Falls who ran a time of 18:55.89. Khvichava would give CCCC two top-five runners by posting a time of 19:10.28 to take fourth while Kwanele Mthembu came in 26th with a time of 19:55.19. Habtamu Geta would place 38th overall with a time of 20:06.66 and would be followed by Ablel Gebreselase (53rd, 20:21.98) and Gabriel Chinya (58th, 20:25.83) to round out the Cloud County runners in the 321-runner field. The third-place finish by Cloud County would come with a total of 111 points, just seven points back of second-place Augustana University while also finishing 120 points better than the next closest junior college school. The average time of 19:41.72 for the T-Birds would also be the second-best average among teams in the meet, and just six seconds off the average set by team champion Nebraska.
What’s Next?
Having pushed through the first two weeks of the season in competition, Cloud County will use next week as an off week to train and recover in preparation for the Woody Greeno/Dirksen Invitational which will be hosted by Nebraska Wesleyan University on Sept. 21. The meet will feature many of the same teams that the T-Birds competed against on Friday evening, along with a handful of NCAA Division I and II teams that did not compete on Friday.