WSU women’s cross country team wins team and individual AAC championships
The start of a special day began when Winny Koskei conquered wet and soggy conditions in New Orleans on Thursday morning to win the individual women’s cross country title at the American Athletic Conference Championships.
Rebekah Topham followed closely to give Wichita State two runners in the top three, then Winnie Kibet and Yazmine Wright kept pace with a pack of runners through the finish line. Finally, Rita Schnacker came striding through and held off four runners to secure a 26th-place finish.
No one knew the importance of what the Shockers had just accomplished until the scores were tallied up and it was revealed the WSU women’s team had stunned the rest of the conference by winning the AAC team title with 63 points, two ahead of Tulsa and four ahead of Temple.
Stunned because WSU was not highly regarded entering the race (ranked No. 12 in the Midwest region) and the AAC featured three teams rated higher than the Shockers, including a SMU squad that was billed as the No. 3 team in the South Central region. As a result, WSU’s coaching staff, headed by Kirk Hunter, was named women’s staff of the year in the AAC after the race.
“I was really impressed with the way (WSU) finished the second-half of the race,” Hunter said. “They were aggressive early, but not so aggressive that it killed them, and then in the middle of the race they really pushed hard. We had goals individually, but their No. 1 goal was to try to win as a team.
“To come out with the win is just beyond words for me. I’m so proud of these girls.”
It was Wichita State that stole the show as the women’s program came away with its first conference championship team and individual since the 2010 season, which just so happened to be Hunter’s first with the program.
The difference is back then WSU had a dynasty rolling. That 2010 title marked the end of a remarkable run by the Shockers, who had won six straight team titles in the Missouri Valley.
It’s since taken time to restore the program to those competitive heights. Hunter has succeeded this year by finding a dynamic 1-2 punch at the top of his lineup in Koskei and Topham and surrounding them with depth to compete as a team.
“I’m so proud of my team because we all fought so hard,” Topham said. “That was definitely the muddiest course I’ve ever ran, but we’re tough and we ran right through it.”
Hunter said the conditions might have actually helped WSU.
“If it was 90 degrees, the humidity is something we’re not used to given the weather we’ve had in Kansas and when we went up to Wisconsin,” Hunter said. “I think the rain may have saved us. I’m just thankful we got the races in.”
Koskei won the 6-kilometer race in 21 minutes, 51 seconds, which was a full 15 seconds faster than the rest of the competition. Topham wasn’t much farther behind, taking third in 22:16. Kibet (15th, 23:28), Wright (18th, 23:32) and Schnacker (26th, 23:50) rounded out the team score for WSU.
Koskei is the program’s ninth conference champion and seventh since 2005. WSU won its 12th conference championship as a team and first in the American.
“I was mentally prepared for whatever the conditions were going to be and anything that could come my way,” Koskei said. “This has been my goal since training over the summer.”
The men’s team also ran its best race of the season, as WSU finished in fourth place in the team standings with 109 points. Zack Penrod led the pack for WSU in 17th place in 28:29, closely followed by Clayton Duchatschek (18th, 28:31), Ben Flowers (21st, 28:43) and Ethan Kossover (22nd, 28:47) and rounded out by Pedro Montoya (33rd, 29:07).
This story was originally published October 25, 2018 at 11:11 AM.