New Orleans – Following a narrow loss a year ago, UIW left no doubt Friday morning at the SLC Men's Cross Country Championship, claiming the title in dominant fashion. Individually, SFA's Elkana Kipruto took home first place honors.
This marks the Cardinals' second ever championship and the second in the last three seasons.
UIW earned six of the final top 10 placements, led by Griffin Neal's third-place time of 24:44.38. Christopher Daniels followed in fifth place at 25:09.67 while Kevin Hernandez took sixth at 25:12.47. Anthony Zapata finished in seventh at 25:14.86 and Kamron Loera clocked in at 25:19.00, clinching the final necessary scores for the Cardinals.
Jared Laverty had the final top 10 finish with a 25:22.44 finish in ninth place. Loera earned Newcomer of the Year honors while Dr. Derek Riedel earned the league's award for Coach of the Year.
Kipruto created significant distance in the first lap of the race and never looked back, totaling a time of 24:28.90. His performance awarded him Runner of the Year and Freshman of the Year honors. Kipruto is the first SFA runner to finish first overall since Charles Mathenge in 2016.
His victory also marks back-to-back freshman victories on the men's side. He helped SFA to a second place team finish with 59 points along with the efforts of Ryan Binskin who finished 10th with a time of 25:28.76 and Riley Elliott who came in 13th with a time of 25:40.53.
HCU finished third with 116 points followed by Texas A&M-Corpus Christi in fourth with 125 and Texas A&M-Commerce in fifth at 143.
The first team all-conference consists of Kipruto, Freddy Richardson of Lamar, Neal, Dominic Kiptum of A&M-Corpus Christi, Daniels, Hernandez and Zapata.
The second team consists of Loera, Laverty, Binskin, Lloyd Sheppard-Brown of Lamar, John Speer of A&M-Commerce, Elliott and Brian Mileski of UIW.
TEAM STANDINGS – FULL RESULTS
| Place |
School |
Points |
| 1 |
UIW |
29 |
| 2 |
SFA |
59 |
| 3 |
HCU |
116 |
| 4 |
Texas A&M-Corpus Christi |
125 |
| 5 |
Texas A&M-Commerce |
143 |
| 6 |
Lamar |
146 |
| 7 |
McNeese |
183 |
| 8 |
New Orleans |
192 |
| 9 |
UTRGV |
219 |
| 10 |
Nicholls |
311 |