It was a successful morning for the Butler Grizzly cross country team at Fun Valley in Hutchinson for the KJCCC and Region VI Championships on Friday. Rodgers Rotich finished second out of the 114 racers who finished in the men's 8k and the Grizzly men won the Jayhawk East conference along with placing 3rd in the Region after a successful race day.
Rotich narrowly missed winning the race with a time of 23:32.94, just over a full second behind the race winner in a race that was neck and neck throughout the 8k run, but still finished a full 30 seconds ahead of the next fastest runner. Victor Jumo was the next fastest runner for the Grizzlies, finishing 14th with a time of 25:39 while Wail Bourhali finished 22nd with a time of 26:12.49. The Grizzlies finished third in the Region, behind only Northwest Tech and Colby, but they still brought home hardware as the team with the best score in the Jayhawk East. The Grizzly men finished the day with 96 points.
On the women's side, it was Heidi Grimmet who finished with the best time for the Grizzlies, earning a 12th place finish with a time of 19:46.19 in the 5k. Gabriella Gordon was the next fastest for Butler, placing 20th with a time 20:27.74. The Grizzlies finished with 143 points which was enough to finish sixth in the region.
It's the national championships up next for Butler, as they travel to Tallahassee, Florida for the NJCAA National Championships on November 12th.
FINAL RESULTS
