Grand Prairie, Texas - Freshman
Weldon Chebon had the performance of his young NMHU career as he topped 400 other runners to capture the individual championship at the Dallas Baptist University Old Glory Gallup on Saturday morning. Chebon completed the 8k course in a time of 23:33 which was nearly twenty seconds faster than the second place finisher.
"Weldon stamped himself as one of the top ten runners in the country today," said NMHU Head coach
Bob DeVries. "He put away a number of All Americans with a surge in mile four (4:19) that few Division II runners would be able to match."
As a team the NMHU men finished with 725 points in the race.
Lawrence Ragland finished in 26:52 and
Erardo Gonzalez went 27:34.
"Our two New Mexico freshmen had big season bests today, but they need to race together the way they are in training. We gave up nearly 40 spots between them, " said DeVries.
Freshman
James Kurui was held out of the race Saturday morning as he nursed a minor injury.
"Obviously, running without James in the lineup hurt -- to the tune of 200+ points. But we'll get him ready for RMAC and work on helping our three, four, and five guys figure out college racing, committed DeVries.
In the women's 5k
Summer Abeyta was the top NMHU finisher with a time of 19:34.
Jewels Leslie (19:58),
Josey French (20:04),
Cemore Donald (20:26), and
Emma Hurren (21:20) rounded out the Cowgirls scorers.
"Some really good things happened today," said Coach DeVries after the women's race. "Josey had the best cross country race of her career; Cemore ran down about 20 runners in the final half-mile; Emma got another personal best, but it just seemed like we left something on the table as a team."
DeVries concluded, "I was looking for a top 20 finish and letting Western New Mexico beat us, after we crushed them a week ago, was disappointing. I need to look at our training and do a better job having everyone ready on the same day."
Up next for NMHU is the 2024 RMAC Championships which will be held on October 26th at the Gene Torres Golf Course in Las Vegas.
