Arkansas Trio Leads No. 3 Razorbacks To Men's Victory Over Iowa State

By Keenan Gray of DyeStat

PHOTOS by Carol Chen and Murray Schukar

VIDEOS

VERONA, Wis. – It took six years for any individual to break the men’s 8-kilometer course record at the Thomas Zimmer Championship Cross Country Course.

Then it took Habtom Samuel only three weeks.

After North Carolina’s Parker Wolfe clocked an 8-kilometer course record time of 23 minutes, 4 seconds at this year’s Nuttycombe Wisconsin Invitational on Sept. 27, the New Mexico sophomore star lowered the standard even more on Saturday at the Wisconsin Pre-Nationals in Verona.

Samuel, who won the men’s 10,000-meter at last year’s NCAA Outdoor Championships, ran the first-ever sub-23-minute performance on the host course of this year’s NCAA Championships, winning the men’s A race in 22:33.8, smashing Wolfe’s best by over 30 seconds.

“It was a great race today,” Samuel said. “I appreciate the guys who ran fast like the Arkansas guys. I give them credit; the pace went really fast and just stayed patient behind them.”

Samuel wasn't alone. 

Harvard’s Graham Blanks, last year’s NCAA cross country champion, opened his senior campaign with a runner-up finish in 22:40.5 just two months after competing for the United States at the Paris Olympic Games.

“In general, the whole race was fast,” Blanks said. “Looking around with a K to go, there was about six of us together. I knew probably after two miles we were going to get the course record today.”

Arkansas’ duo of Patrick Kiprop and Kirami Yego blazed a hot pace from the gun through two-kilometers at 5:33.7. At four kilometers, Yego held his position out front in 11:23.

By six kilometers, Kiprop regained the lead in 17:01.7, with Samuel in second, Blanks in third and three others remaining in the lead pack.

Samuel took his first lead with 1,000 meters to go, breaking away from both Kiprop and Blanks with a massive surge before the final climb.

“My training has really prepared me for this race and for nationals,” Samuel said. “Last year I wasn’t very good at finishing, so today I’m better.”

Eastern Kentucky’s Justine Kipkoech was one of three freshmen to finish in the top 10, finishing third in 22:41.8. Iowa State’s Robin Kwemo Bera finished fifth in 22:45.9 and Cal Baptist’s Zouhair Redouane rounded out the top 10 in 23:05.4.

Seniors Bob Liking of Wisconsin and Cole Sprout of Stanford put together strong performances, with Liking running 22:54.6 for sixth and Sprout running 23:03.2 for ninth.

Arkansas’ Kiprop, Yego and Yaseen Aballa all came away with top 10 individual finishes to lead the No. 3 Razorbacks to an 89-128 win over No. 4 Iowa State.

Kiprop’s season opener resulted in a 22:43 effort to finish fourth to lead the Hogs, while Yego took seventh in 22:59.4 and Abdalle earned eighth in 23:01.5.

“As a team, we came here to prove our fitness,” Yego said. “Some of the guys didn’t run at Chile Pepper, like Yaseen and Patrick, so they just wanted to test their fitness. We know we are good; we’re about 90 percent right now. Going into SECs and nationals, I think we will be 100 percent.”

Ben Shearer delivered a top 20 finish in 18th, running 23:10.5, and Timothy Chesondin finished 52nd in 23:31.6 to complete Arkansas’ scoring. 

“We wanted to see where we were at fitness wise, how are guys would perform under some pressure against some really good teams,” Arkansas head coach Chris Bucknam said. “I thought we came through with a pretty good race today.”

Bera, Said Mechaal (23:10.7, 19th), Sanele Masondo (23:14.9, 24th), Devan Kipyego (23:18.2, 30th) and Gable Sieperda (23:31, 50th) were all second-place Iowa State's top five.

No. 9 Stanford finished with 142 points for third, behind Sprout, Lex Young (23:10.8, 20th) and Thomas Boyden (23:11.7, 22nd) cracking the top 25.

No. 8 New Mexico, behind Samuel’s win, collected 166 points to finish in fourth ahead of Mountain Region foe, No. 6 NAU, who finished fifth with 178 points.

Host No. 10 Wisconsin scored 199 points for sixth, finishing ahead of No. 5 Notre Dame by a single point in seventh.

No. 23 Syracuse and No. 24 Cal Baptist finished ninth and 10th, respectively.