The Florida cross country teams made the most of what is expected to be their first of three trips to Columbia, Missouri, this fall with impressive showings at the Gans Creek Classic Friday morning.
With sophomore Judy Chepkoech and freshman Kelvin Cheruiyot recording the women’s and men’s teams best finishes in their Florida debuts, the No. 12 women took a convincing win over an impressive national field and the men steadily moved up over the final kilometers to finish 23rd overall.
“This validates how good we believe our women are, stacking up against a national field well,” Florida associate head coach Will Palmer said. “Sometimes these fields are big enough or competitive enough to kind of expose our… current weak points, the things that need addressing, and that’s what today did for us.”
Women’s
The Gators got out aggressively, with senior Hilda Olemomoi, sophomore Judy Chepkoech and freshman Desma Chepkoech comfortably inside a lead pack that was separated by just over a second through the first kilometer.
Things didn’t change much over the first half of the race for Florida, as Olemomoi was never lower than second and had the exact same time as the leader at the two- and three-kilometer splits. Both Chepkoeches were comfortably inside the top 10 as well, with senior Tia Wilson starting to move up in the field.
Wilson moved up 10 spots over the course of the fourth kilometer, coming through that split in third and only .6 seconds off the leader, Iowa State freshman Betty Kipkore. Olemomoi, on the other hand, dropped to fourth, falling off the lead pace for the first time in the race.
The fifth kilometer proved brutal for Florida, as every runner except Desma Chepkoech dropped several spots at the five-kilometer mark. What was a comfortable lead in the team race tightened slightly with these developments, but the Gators held steady over the final kilometer to claim the team title. Florida totalled 102 points to No. 8 Northern Arizona’s 126 points.
“One of the things we’ll go back to the drawing board on is to figure out what put us in that position,” Palmer said of the final kilometers. “One of the positive things is that we were all kinda trending in the same direction, which says we’re all thinking and operating in the same way… It’s the same issue that manifested itself across six different people.”
In her Florida debut, Judy Chepkoech was the Gators’ top finisher, crossing the line in 19:22.9 for seventh. An All-American last year at Arizona State, her debut in a Florida kit shows she’s in a great position to once again be a major player on the national stage.
“I’m so excited because it’s like cheering each other,” Chepkoech said about finishing inside the Top 10 with three of her teammates. “That’s teamwork, and I’m so proud of my team.”
Wilson finished eighth, followed by Olemomoi in ninth and Desma Chepkoech in 10th. Senior Caroline Wells rounded out Florida’s scoring quintet with a 68th-place finish, while redshirt senior Beth Morley faded from 34th to 77th over the final three kilometers, falling out of a scoring position.
“Not all that different from all the other women,” Palmer said of Morley’s race. “We call it ‘the ripple effect’... the error starts out small and gets bigger and bigger. There are a couple key things to clean up with Beth that are gonna radically change the outcome.”
Three more Florida runners competed in the black race later in the morning, with redshirt junior Breanna Stuart leading the way in 45th.
Men’s
The men’s race was nearly the exact opposite of the women’s race for Florida, as the Gators had a very conservative start that was followed by impressive climbing as the race progressed.
Cheruiyot spearheaded the Gators in his NCAA debut. The 24-year-old freshman from Samitui, Kenya, was the only Florida runner to hold a spot inside the Top 100 at any kilometer split. After coming through two kilometers in 87th, Cheruiyot catapulted himself into 30th at the halfway point before methodically climbing up 14 more spots over the second half of the race, finishing 16th overall in 23:02.1.
“Today, I didn’t want to push more and run from the start,” Cheruiyot said. “I just wanted to run my race and see how the course is. On the last lap, I felt good and said, ‘Let me try and push to see how many guys I pass.’”
Nearly half of the men finished ahead of Cheruiyot finished inside the top 100 at the NCAA Championships last year, including five men that earned All-American honors. Before the season, Palmer said that Cheruiyot would begin to “hit his stride” in October after arriving on campus late in the summer, so this could be just scratching the surface of what he could be capable of in the postseason.
“We knew he was good, so today was just about seeing what is he capable of in a field like this,” Palmer said. “Sometimes there can be a gap between talent and composure in these big fields, but he kept his head on his shoulders.”
Sophomores Jonathan Leon and Josh Ruiz had even more drastic climbs in this race, with Leon sitting as low as 195th before finishing 114th and Leon improving over 100 spots, from 224th at one kilometer to 115th at the finish line.
Redshirt freshman Graham Myers and redshirt sophomore Riley Novack rounded out Florida’s scorers, finishing 193rd and 199th, respectively.
Of the five runners that scored for the Gators, there were only two splits where they had lost positioning between kilometers from 3000 meters on, as the team climbed from 29th and 780 points at three kilometers to 23rd and 606 points by the end of the race.
Florida assistant coach Cameron Ponder spoke about the men’s team developing “an edge” as the season goes along, and he feels today may have been a step towards discovering that.
“We have a younger team on the guys' side… just the experience from today is gonna be really good for them,” Ponder said. “Getting their butts kicked a bit is going to be good, good to find that edge. It’s a bit of a reminder that we’ve got a lot of work to do to get where we wanna go.”
Next on Florida’s schedule is a return to Columbia for Missouri Pre-Nationals on Oct. 18.
Contact Paul Hof-Mahoney at phof-mahoney@alligator.org. Follow him on X at @phofmahoney.
Paul is a senior sports journalism student and is the cross country/track and field reporter in his third semester with The Alligator. In his free time, you can catch him scrolling Twitter to keep up with an endless flood of track results and training for the media 800-meter race at the World Athletics Championships.
