Track team faces hot competition at Chile Pepper Meet

The Eagles cross country team participated in the Chile Pepper Festival this past weekend in Fayetteville, Ark., and proved themselves to be a team that can overcome tough odds.

This meet is one of the most well-known meets throughout the nation. There is a special connection to the meet because Chadron State’s interim president, Randy Rhine, is a founder of the Festival. Rhine became involved with the meet when he was continuing his education at the University of Arkansas in the 1980s. He was the one who mentioned and encouraged Head Coach Ryan Baily to sign the athletes up for the meet.

It ended up being a great decision as the runners did an excellent job, Bailey said. All of the runners ran their longest race on Saturday, against 330 other entries, where most of them were from Division I schools. Yet, Coach Baily was impressed with the outcomes.

“We had some of the best competition and the athletes ran well,” Baily said.

CSC women’s team came in 36th out of the 43 teams. Senior of Chadron, Ashley Riesen led the women with a time of 23:58.6 and captured 135th place for the Eagles. Following her was freshman Jayme Nunes of Alliance who came in 170th with a time of 24:31.6. Arkansas took the team title, while Monika Juodeskaite of Oklahoma State won the race with a 20:54.3 time.

For the men, Alex Johnson, senior of Kearney, led the way for the Eagle runners with a time of 34:35.1 and taking 167th place. The men only captured 33rd place out of 34, but some good milestones were made. The men averaged a six minute per mile pace for the whole 6.2 mile course. Oklahoma won the team title for the men, but the winner, Kennedy Kithuka, came from Texas Tech with a time of 28:53.0.

The Eagles runners are preparing for the Oct. 20 RMAC championships in Colorado Springs.

“We are going into the championship with no pressure, and we’re excited about it,” Baily said.