This past Saturday, the Barclay College cross country team competed in their last regular season meet of the 2016 fall season. They traveled to Winfield, Kans. for the Southwestern NAIA Mid-States Classic hosted by Southwestern College.

The meet had a huge and stacked field of over 100 runners per race. With warmer temperatures and a challenging rocky and hilly course, both sophomore Noah Camp (Winfield, Kans.) and Katy Vanderploeg (Haviland, Kans.) ran strong races. Camp ended up with his second fastest time of the year, running 30:06 in the men’s 8k. Vanderploeg put in a time of 23:34 in the women’s 5k. Both runners navigated the tough course quite well.

“The crowded start went from a long starting line to a tight bottleneck within the first 200 meters. That type of congestion makes for a challenging start and makes it more difficult to find your pace working around the competition” said head coach Whitney Kregar. “I was very pleased with their performances and we are really looking forward to speed work next week anticipating the Run for Missions 5k. We have just three weeks until Nationals and both Noah and Katy are racing well. Hopefully they will both peak at Nationals to end a fantastic season.”