Lady Texans dominate home meet
LEVELLAND, Texas - Lady Texan cross country runners Darroneshia Lott, Kirsten Taylor, and Michaela Johnson ran away from the rest of the competition to sweep the top three individual spots to help lead the SPC women to the team title in their lone home competition of the season.
Lott, a freshman from Pensacola, Fla., won the individual title for the third time in four competitions this year when she covered the 5,000-meter course with a time of 18 minutes, 2.75 seconds. 26-seconds later, Taylor crossed the line in second place turning in a time of 18:28.85. Johnson (18:49.79) out-kicked a competitor from Wayland Baptist to complete the 1-2-3 Lady Texan sweep.
2010 cross country All-American Tiffany Matthews (19:14.34) finished fifth and freshman Kateland Maddox (20:27.07) completed the team scoring in 12th overall to give South Plains a team score of 22 points, 12 better than the runner-up team Wayland Baptist.
Britney Shedd (20:43.95) also ran for the Lady Texans, finishing 14th.
Natoya Goule, the runner-up at last year's NJCAA cross country and half-marathon championships, did not compete.
In the men's race, sophomore Kemoy Campbell suffered his first defeat of the season when he completed the 8,000-meter course in 24:38.96. Isacc Placencia was the only other Texan runner to finish in the top-10 as he crossed the line in seventh with a time of 25:30.36.
Bretton Villarreall (26:25.80) was 11th, while Rene Escobedo (26:57.81) and Jonathan Lira(27:16.48) rounded out the Texan team scoring placing 15th and 17th, respectively.
The Texans finished with 43 team points to claim runner-up honors in the team standings, 16 points behind the champions from Wayland Baptist University.
South Plains College will race again on Tuesday, October 11 at Angelo State University.