Ags take 26th at prestigious Chile Pepper
FAYETTEVILLE, Arkansas (October 13) – Once again running with some of the best cross country programs in the nation, the Aggies today traveled east to take part in the annual University of Arkansas Chile Pepper Festival. The Chile Pepper is one of the most important races each year on the cross country calendar. Competing alongside the likes of the University of Arkansas, Auburn University, Virginia Tech University, Louisiana State University, and others, Cameron took 26th place out of 36 total teams.
The race was a distance of 10-kilometers, Cameron’s first race of that length this season. Cameron finished with an overall team time of 2:52:12.6 with an average individual time of 34:26.5. The Aggies totaled 696 points. “I thought we did really well,” Coach Aguero said. “There were a lot of big schools there so it was good to run against them and see where we are at.”
Unlike many of the big races, the Chile Pepper runs just one division instead of a University Division, for the big schools, and a College Division, for the smaller schools. Even if there had been two divisions, Coach Aguero would have most likely run his guys with the big boys of the University Division. Senior Mudasar Haidat had the best finish for the Aggies as he came in 64th place. He was the lone Aggie to finish in the top 100. His time for the race was 32:16.2.
“Mudasar had a really good race,” Coach Aguero said. “He did just great and beat each of the runners from East Central (University) for the first time all season.” The remaining Aggie runners finished as follows:
Casey Kreger – 155th place – 32:16.2
Jamin Jones – 157th place – 34:57.8
Juan Ruiz – 158th place – 34:58.9
Mubashar Haidat – 162th place – 35:08.4
Aaron Hibbits – 166th place – 35:24.9
Garrett Hofman – 181st place – 36:10.6
Guy Narcomey – N/A – 38:34.2
Mustansar Haidat – N/A – 39:17.4
Brian Amyx – N/A – 41:11.4 Only the top seven runners from each school are awarded a place, which is why some Aggie runners were not given one.
“We had a real strong pack of guys that ran together and were within seconds of each other,” Coach Aguero said. “This was our first 10-K and we were ready to go. This was actually the first 10-K ever for some of our guys.”
Cameron was one of the few Division-II programs at the meet, finishing behind Abilene Christian (2nd Place) and East Central (20th place) in the D-II ranks. The University of Arkansas won the event with a total team time of 2:30:41.8 and an average individual time of 30:08.3. They finished with a team score of 47. Texas A&M-Corpus Christi’s Shadrack Songok won the individual title with a first-place time of 29:22.1. Corpus Christi finished in 6th place overall.
The rest of the top ten finishers are as follows:
Nicodemus Naimadu – Abilene Christian – 2nd place – 29:34.9
Elkanah Kibet – Rend Lake College – 3rd place – 29:36.1
Julius Bor – Cloud Community College – 4th place – 29:40.8
Shawn Forrest – Arkansas – 5th place – 29:44.5
Ben Cheruiyot – Rend Lake College – 6th place – 29:55.4
Felix Kiboiywo – Auburn – 7th place – 30:07.2
Scott MacPherson – Arkansas – 8th place – 30:08.3
Tyler Hill – Arkansas – 9th place – 30:12.1
Festus Kigen – Texas Christian – 10th place – 30:14.5
The Aggies travel to Commerce, Texas, next weekend to take part in the Lone Star Conference Championship meet. Cameron finished in 7th place out of 9 schools at last year’s championship meet. “Hopefully now that we got more experience we will be better next week,” Coach Aguero said. “We are going to train hard right through the conference meet and get ready for the regional meet. We aren’t going to change much because it was been working good already.”
