ACC cross country places first

Taking home hardware has been consistent for Allen Community College’s men’s cross country team, which took first overall Saturday at the Fort Hays State Tiger Open.
The win gives the Red Devils momentum going into the Region VI/KJCCC Conference meet in Colby this Saturday.
Individually, the men were lead by the 1-2 punch of Pedro Montoya and Brock Artis in the 8k race. Montoya took third in 24 minutes, 39 seconds, while Artis finished in fifth with a 25:06 mark.
Trail Spears finished just outside the top 10, with a time of 25:48 for 11th. Jeremy Brittain took 14th in 26:03; Meshach Adams placed 18th in 26:09; Daniel Driskel finished 28th in 26:44; Connor Immenschuh followed in 29th in 26:44; Diego Sanchez took 44th in 27:24; and Mitchell Greenlee placed 49th in 27:35.
As a group, the team beat out 10 other teams.
Coach Vince DeGrado said the team was expecting to be in a different race. The Red Devils had permission to enter the ‘Gold Division,’ which had larger Division I and II schools. But, a few of the junior colleges wanted to run against Allen and tried to move up to the ‘Gold Division.’ They weren’t good enough to make the jump, so Allen was placed in the ‘Black Division’ with NAIA and junior college schools.
“I knew we were going to win that one by a lot, because we raced all of them before,” DeGrado said. “That’s why we wanted to run up in the ‘gold’ division. We would have run faster because it was a faster race. If you placed us in the upper division, we would have finished eighth. But, we would have run a bit faster because we would have kept up with the other’s times.”
Montoya and Artis both broke Allen’s previous school record for an 8k race, 25:10.
“Pedro broke the school record for cross country,” DeGrado said. “He’s the fastest runner in the program’s history, then Brock’s the second fastest runner. So, both of those guys were able to go 1-2 for us in the top-25 runners.”
This win will keep Allen the highest ranked team in Region VI, putting them as the favorites to win Saturday.
Since this is a conference and region meet, ACC will get both a conference finish and region finish. For example, the last year’s team easily won the conference title, but was edged out in the Region VI standings by Colby.
Region VI is made up of both the Jayhawk East and Jayhawk West conferences.
“We should win the conference title on the men’s side. We beat Highland already. Anything could happen,” DeGrado said. “The problem is its going to be mostly us against Highland. Cowley isn’t very good, Johnson isn’t good, Coffeyville is better than those two schools. It’s kind of backwards of how it’s always been.”
DeGrado said it’s been backwards because when he was the cross country coach at Cowley, the team won four straight conference titles and Johnson took second those years.
For the past two seasons, Allen has finished second in the region. Colby will be the team’s toughest competition to take the Region VI crown.
“It’s hard being the bridesmaid.  I hate the fact we will be ranked higher than Colby going in because I feel like since we haven’t beaten them, then why are we the favorites?” DeGrado said. “On paper, we might look like the favorites, but it’s going to be a very close battle.”
DeGrado said Allen was the better team last season, but “we just got our butts kicked.” This season, Cowley should be the better team, mostly because they have so many returning runners. But, Allen will probably be the favorites going into Saturday’s race.
After Saturday, the team will prepare for the NJCAA Championship Nov. 8
. DeGrado said pretty much any team can go if they choose, but he has some guidelines: Be a top-20 team, finish in the top two in conference and be top-five in the region.
“We are top-20, we’re going to win the conference. Barring injuries, we should win the conference,” DeGrado said. “Then, we will be a top-five in the region.”
As for Alisn Stevens, the lone women’s runner, she ran her fastest race of the season at Fort Hays, finishing 18th with a time 20:03 in the 5k meet. To go to nationals, she has a different criteria to pass. She must finish within the top-10 times of the region. But, DeGrado will take out the runners that finished on the top-three teams of the region.
“After how she ran this weekend, I think she’s got a good shot,” DeGrado said. “That was her fastest time of the year. She did a really good job.”
With the regular season coming to a close, DeGrado told his team how he thought they did.
“I had a quote I told the team, ‘sometimes the journey is a reward.’ What that means is where I thought we were at the start of the season, we’ve been way better than that,” DeGrado said. “We’ve developed better than I expected. This team has been a really refreshing group for me as a coach.”