Gaston College cross country team begins prep for postseason on Saturday
At the end of October, Gaston College's women's cross country program will compete in its second National Junior College Athletic Association Region 10 championship meet.
This Saturday starting at 9:45 a.m., the Rhinos will get a "run through" to prepare for it as they compete in the Yetis Invitational at the Cleveland Community College course that will also host the Region 10 meet on Oct. 28.
"We're looking forward to going over to the Cleveland Community College course because that's where the Region 10 is going to be," Gaston College women's cross country coach Kody Kubbs said. "We're going over there to see what we can improve upon. Our big thing is getting on that course so that when we get back on there in late October, we'll know the course well. It's a chance to get confident before the championships."
The Rhinos will have confidence of an impressive performance in last Saturday's opening meet in the Pfeiffer Cross Country Invitational.
Freshman Keirieonna Wilson became the school's first regular season medalist and highest regular season finisher and the Rhinos finished sixth out of a seven-team field with six four-year schools on the Women's 5K course.
A freshman from Statesville, Wilson finished sixth overall with a school-best time of 21:31.1.
After Victoria Perez was the school's medalist for each of the 10 meets in which she competed in the school's first two seasons in the sport, Wilson became the second medalist.
An all-conference cross country runner at South Iredell High School who also was a distance outdoor and indoor track runner, Wilson has consistently run well in preseason workouts.
And her time in last Saturday's Pfeiffer meet set a school record and bettered Perez's personal school-record time of 22:27.78 that was set in the 2022 Region 10 championships in Spartanburg, S.C. And Perez's third-place finish in that postseason meet also remains a school-best overall finish.
Other scorers last Saturday were freshmen Abigail Presley (36th place with a 32 score), Abbygale King (44th place with a 39 score) and Alayna Cook (48th place with a 41 score) and returning sophomore Stefani Vergara-Delgado (37th place with 33 score).
Freshman Abigale Harris (49th place), sophomore Leah Treat (52nd) and freshman Maytalene Lopez (54th) also competed for the Rhinos. Sophomore Emma Laney didn't compete while recovering from injury.
NCAA Division III host Pfeiffer won the team title and NCAA Division II Winston-Salem State, Francis Marion, Johnson C. Smith, United States Collegiate Athletic Association Johnson & Wales of Charlotte finished ahead of Gaston College while the Rhinos were ahead of NCAA Division III Averett.
"Honestly, the big thing coming into today with it being our first meet was to get some experience under our belt," Kubbs said. "I wanted them to see what a college race was all about. I told them, 'No pressure today. This is our intro meet.'
"You can tell these girls have been busting their tails at practice and you can tell we're going to get better as it goes as we gain experience.
"So it was very promising what we showed today."