Middle Tennessee's Star Freshmen Sweep Individual Conference Championships

Saturday, November 2

Oxford, Ala.

Middle Tennessee

Conference USA Championship

11/2/2024 5:58:00 PM | Men's Cross Country and Track & Field, Women's Cross Country and Track & Field, Track & Field/Cross Country

By: Jayce Standridge, MTSU Athletic Communications

Oxford, Ala. - Middle Tennessee's super-star freshman Odilia Jepchumba and Allan Kiplagat swept the individual Conference Championship today to take home three CUSA honors each, while both teams grabbed the runner-up spot at the CUSA Cross Country Championship.

Odilia Jepchumba battled hard for the MTSU women sticking with the front of the pack going back and forth for first place. At the 3000 meter mark, she started to take advantage of the flat terrain in Oxford to stride into first place. She held it out for the last 2000 meters and didn't look back. She won the Conference USA Women's Individual championship, Freshman of the Meet and made the All-CUSA First Team. MTSU has now won two straight Individual CUSA championships, dating back to last season with Purity Sanga. Jepchumba is just the third freshman ever to win a Conference USA individual title and has the third fastest time ever for a CUSA 6K championship with a 20:05.27 finish. She also is MTSU's third straight Freshman of the Meet dating back to 2022.

Sandra Maiyo finished just behind her in seventh place. She stuck with the top runners for the majority of the race before falling just behind to grab second place for the Blue Raiders. She was awarded All-CUSA First Team honors. Eleanor Towe was right outside the top-10 with an 11th place finish, and made the All-CUSA Second Team. Nancy Maiyo and Agnes Chepkurui finished the scoring for the Blue Raiders going 32nd and 52nd.

Allan Kiplagat had a nice pace going early, sticking with the top runners for the first half of the race. He turned on the jets at the 5K mark and did not look back once. He easily cruised to the finish line beating the second place finisher by 25 seconds. The dominant victory awarded him the Individual Champion, Freshman of the Meet, and All-CUSA First Team honors. Kiplagat is the fourth freshman to win the CUSA Individual Championship and the first since MTSU's Jacob Choge in 2016.

Brian Kiptoo finished just off the podium in fourth place to earn All-CUSA First Team for the second straight year. Jacinto Gaspar was the 10th place finisher to grab All-CUSA Second Team with Carmelo Cannizzaro who finished in 14th. Vincent Yegon finished out the scoring for the Blue Raiders in 19th place to earn a spot on the All-CUSA Third Team. The men fell short to Liberty by just two points.
This is the first time in Conference USA history that a team sweeps the Individual Championship with two freshmen.

Coach Vroman's Thoughts
"For the women, I thought we had a good race. We are young and run a lot of freshman and sophomores primarily. We just have to get in the groove for the 6K, since a lot of them haven't run it very much. Odilia had a great race, she's our third straight Freshman of the Year, so our future is bright. On the men's side, we ran what we needed to run. Liberty just got us today by a hair on the nose."

Up next
The Blue Raiders will travel to Tallahassee, Florida to compete in the NCAA Division 1 South Regional. The meet will take place on Friday, November 15th and will be hosted by Florida State University.

RACE RESULTS
Saturday, November 2nd | Conference USA Championship

Men's 8k – 48 points – 2nd out of 10 teams

Place	Name	Time
1	Allan Kiplagat	23:27.82
4	Brian Kiptoo	24:06.32
10	Jacinto Gaspar	24:18.26
14	Carmelo Cannizzaro	24:32.22
19	Vincent Yegon	24:38.40

Women's 6k – 94 points – 2nd place out of 10 teams

Place	Name	Time
1	Odilia Jepchumba	20:05.27
7	Sandra Maiyo	20:44.98
11	Eleanor Towe	21:05.01
32	Nancy Maiyo	21:57.08
52	Agnes Chepkurui	23:17.17

Follow Along
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