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 Vaqueras had a 45 second spread from their 1st to 5th runner, which was the 2nd best out of any team in the top 15 at the national meet and only one of two teams to have their spread under a minute.

"Most years having a spread such as ours would win it" Stated Harmon. "But our ladies all needed to place significantly higher for us to have had a chance."

The Vaquera's had a familiar frontrunner at this meet, Hannah Hammer. Hannah toured the 5km race in 19:59.10 which was good enough to claim 38th overall out of 178 runners and ran the 8th fastest time from the ACCAC from any division on Saturday.  Hannah, an 800 specialist, competed in only her 4th ever 5k on Saturday and also had the 11th best time run by an American in D1.  "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 Vaquera's were:

Reshila Curley 20:12.50 (48th Overall) had the 17th best time run by an American at the 2025 D1 NJCAA National meet and the 10th best time from the ACCAC from any division.

Lillian Kamm 20:32.50 (63rd Overall) had the 13th best time from the ACCAC from any division at the 2025 National Meet.

Larisa Hernandez 20:39.10 (70th Overall) had the 15th best time from the ACCAC from any division at the 2025 National Meet.

Tyara Hernandez 20:45.00 (75th Overall) had the 17th best time from the ACCAC from any division at the 2025 National Meet.

Emerson Young 20:52.50 (81st Overall) had the 18th best time from the ACCAC from any division at the 2025 National Meet.

Joyce Hernandez 22:03.80 (116th Overall) had the 29th best time from the ACCAC from any division at the 2025 National Meet.

The Women Placed 11th overall out of 26 Teams, a total of 178 athletes competed. The Vaqueras had a 20:25 team average from 1-5 and a 45 second spread. Southern Idaho (5th Team), Snow College (6th Team), Salt Lake (10th Team), CAC (11th Team), Garden City (14th Team) and Vincennes University (15th Team) are the only teams in the top 15 with 4 or more American athletes at the Division 1 Championship.