Saturday

The cross country teams competed at the 2025 NJCAA D1 National Championship hosted by Iowa Central on Saturday in Fort Dodge, IA.  The meet, which consisted of NJCAA D1 programs, was the final meet for both the men and women teams.  

Iowa Central won the meet for the men while Odessa took top honors for the women. 

"Our goal from Day 1, as a team, was to come to this meet and contend for a championship." Stated Head Coach Jon Harmon "Although we had some great individual performances, as a team, we underachieved."

The Vaqueros had a 48 second spread from their first to 5th runner, which was the best out of any team at the national meet and the only team to have their spread under a minute.

"Most years having a spread such as ours would win it" Stated Harmon. "But our guys all needed to be 10 spots higher for us to have had a chance."

The Vaquero's had a familiar frontrunner at this meet, Joel Barros. Joel toured the 8km race in 25:57.30 which was good enough to claim 18th overall out of 213 runners and run the fastest time from the ACCAC from any division on Saturday.  Joel just missed earning All-American status from the NJCAA, the award is given to Top 15 in the nation.  "Both teams have worked extremely hard this season and its tough to come to the national meet and expect everyone to have a perfect race. We don't have double elimination or a do-over, you have one shot to get it right and we just didn't do that today."  

Rounding out placing for the Vaquero's were:

Jayden Smith 26:03.20 (19th Overall) had the 3rd best time run by an American at the 2025 NJCAA National meet and the 2nd best time from the ACCAC from any division.

Fausto Pianciola 26:40.40 (37th Overall) had the 4th best time from the ACCAC from any division at the 2025 National Meet.

Gabrial Escanuela 26:44.10 (41st Overall) had the 9th best time run by an American at the 2025 NJCAA National Meet and the 5th best time from the ACCAC from any division.

Carson Wetzel 26:45.70 (44th Overall) had the 10th best time run by an American at the 2025 NJCAA National Meet and the 6th best time from the ACCAC from any division.

Emmanuel Simiyu 27:50.10 (90th Overall) had the 13th best time from the ACCAC from any division at the 2025 National Meet.

Sandile Pule 28:56.60 (132nd Overall) had the 27th best time from the ACCAC from any division at the 2025 National Meet.

The Men Placed 5th overall out of 30 Teams, a total of 213 athletes competed. The Vaqueros had a 26:26 team average from 1-5 and a 48 second spread. Snow College (4th Team), CAC (5th Team), and Southern Idaho (8th Team) are the only teams in the top 10 with 4 or more American athletes at the Division 1 Championship.