Pueblo, Colorado - The NMHU cross country teams each posted runner-up finishes on Friday morning at the South Central Preview at the Walking Stick Golf Course as
Weldon Chebon won the Men's 8k and
Joan Kuyo was third in the Women's 6k.
Coach
Bob DeVries summarized Friday's races by simply saying, "Really outstanding effort today."
Kuyo posted a 21:57.9 to lead all Cowgirl runners.
Summer Abeyta had another solid outing as she finished eight at 22:58.8 and freshman Talor Begay was 15th at 24:03.1.
Hailey Renteria (25:24.4) and Aailiyah Maria (27:45.8) rounded out the NMHU scorers.
"Joan had the lead with 200 to go, but she was battling two sub - 2:06 800 runners and that's a lot of speed to contend with," said Coach DeVries. "Summer broke 23 minutes for the first time in her college career on a pretty tough grass course and Taylor also impressed me with her improvement."
Sophomore Chebon captured the top spot in the men's race with a 24:40.4 which was more than 30 seconds faster than the second place finisher.
James Kurui (25:53.5) and
Xavier Martinez (26:47.6) finished sixth and seventh respectively.
Jude Martinez (29:20.9) and
Alonso Torres (30:39.9) rounded out the scoring for the Cowboys.
"Weldon ran a controlled race and waited to take the lead - he's building towards coming back to the same course and running tough at Regionals," commented DeVries. "Xavier broke up CSU-Pueblo's top five and beat Metro's number one guy, so a really solid race for him."
The NCAA Division II South Central Regionals will be run on the Walking Stick Golf Course in just over a month making today's race a good primer for NMHU according to Coach DeVries.
"Glad we went - it's a deceptive course with some interesting elevation changes. It's a course you have to think your way around."
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