Saturday was a memorable day on the hilly cross country course of Allen County Country Club.
Allen Community College, hosting its first-ever Region VI Cross Country Meet, secured its eighth consecutive Jayhawk East mens crown, while finishing third in the final regional standings, behind Cloud County and Hutchinson.
We had some great performances out there, Red Devil head coach Vince DeGrado said. We didnt run the best we could have. We had a couple of runners who normally run in our top 5 that didnt do that, and we had a freshman step up that was huge.
None of the efforts was as memorable as Wesley Banguria, a Colby Community College sophomore from Suwerwa, Kenya.
Banguria ran the hilly, 8,000-meter (5-mile) course in a mind-boggling 23 minutes, 30.56 seconds the equivalent of a 4:44 mile.
Ive been in this game for a while, so Im never really impressed, DeGrado said. But that was impressive. You see fast runners all the time, but damn. That guy ran off the charts.
Meanwhile, Cloud easily secured the overall mens Region VI crown by placing four runners in the top 8 overall.
Allens Joshua Doria was the quickest among all Jayhawk East runners, finishing in 25:58.3, good for ninth overall. Henos Andebrhan and Mitchell Dervin gave ACC a top-three sweep among Jayhawk East runners in 26:30.2 and 26:36.77, respectively. They were 13th and 14th among all runners.
Other runners for Allen and their overall results: 19. Augustus Martiello, 27:03.03; 22. Brig Merritt, 27:14.52; Marco Castro, 27:24.25; 34. Garrett Gantt, 27:58.2; 36. Joel Fane, 28:01.37; 56. Will Johnson, 29:16.72; 71. Ben Mermesch, 30:54.23.
We could have done things differently, but you never know until the end result, DeGrado said. I thought we were in second (in final regional standings), because the live results had us in second over Hutch. But there were a couple of Hutch runners whose scores didnt register.
Allens women struggled over their 5K run.
Emisela Martines led the Red Devil runners, finishing in 22:53.76, good for 34th overall. She was followed by Ryiann Araujo in 35th at 22.59.97 and Carrington Buoy in 37th at 23:08. Cristal Sanchez was 45th in 24:01.
It just wasnt our day, DeGrado said. We didnt do quite as well as I liked. As a coach, we just have to move forward.
DEGRADO, who returned this season from a season-long suspension following an altercation with an indoor track coach two years ago, pulled double-duty for Saturdays competition.
He also designed the course, one he jokingly referred to as a death march for the athletes.
If youre the host school, you want to make it about everyone whos here, the fans, spectators, families, runners and coaches, DeGrado said. If youre going to host a championship meet, then make it a championship meet from top to bottom.
