Winny Koskei's biggest competition is competing by her side every day.

With the opportunity to run with 2016 conference champion Rebekah Topham, Koskei has used that to obtain two top three finishes and recently come up with an 11th place outing at Pre-Nationals.

Even though the two are competitive on the cross country course, Wichita State's leaders are satisfied when the other one succeeds.   

"They support each other tremendously. They really pull for each other," Wichita State Cross Country coach Kirk Hunter said. "Neither one of them wants to get beat by the other one. Obviously, they're competitive girls, but on the other side of it they are very happy for the other individual when they do well. Winny was extremely happy for Rebekah when she won J.K. Gold and Rebekah was extremely happy for Winny at Pre-Nationals."

In Kericho, Kenya, Koskei would often joke around with her friends about how she wanted to go to college in the United States. With her brother, Philip Cheruiyot, was on a college track and field scholarship at Missouri Valley College and he encouraged his younger sister to follow in a similar path.

As soon as she took up running, she instantly realized that her dream could turn into a reality.

"My older brother was running for his college in the United States and had suggested I try running to get a scholarship to study in the United States," Koskei said. "I had never tried running before, but then I decided to give it a try and see what happens."

When Koskei arrived on Wichita State's campus, she was quiet and shy around her teammates and focused her attention on running. The summer break following her first collegiate season, she was approached by Topham, the eighth female Shocker to win a conference title. 

The sophomore runner rambled on about her summer back home and the two had a connection from that moment. Seeing the bond that his two best runners had, Hunter decided to make them roommates on the road.

That only made the chemistry stronger.

On road trips, Koskei and Topham often chat about their aspirations for the upcoming race and the culture of Kenya. While the three-time J.K. Gold Classic winner has never traveled to Africa, she is intrigued by Koskei's culture of how Kenya runners train on dirt roads and how she grew up in a different environment.

"When we room together, we'd be just chilling in our room, just talking about running and our goals and stuff, Topham said. "We also talk about Kenya a lot, which is really cool because obviously she loves talking about Kenya but I also love hearing about it because it's so different and everything."

While Wichita State's top two runners try to best each other in races, whoever finishes first is often the first one to give praise to the other. Koskei has finished in front of Topham in two out of the Shockers' three races (2nd in Chile Pepper and 11th in Pre-Nationals), but the Griswold, Iowa native is her biggest supporter.

Thanks to Topham's inspiration, that is what has fueled Koskei to early success in 2018.  

"She is someone who is friendly and encouraging," Koskei said. "She always says 'Oh Winny, I know you can do it!' During the workouts, she helps me and pushes me."

Wichita State competes in their second American Athletic Conference meet on Thursday and the best runners for the black and yellow have one goal in mind: finish first and second together.

"We've been talking about that the whole week and pretty much the whole season," Topham said. "That's really our big goal and we just want to help the team the best we can to go for that team title. It's going to be exciting."

Staying Together
On the men's side, Hunter has stressed the importance of packing together as a group. By doing this, the Shockers came up with a second place finish at the J.K. Gold Classic and a fifth place finish at Chile Pepper.

Hunter doesn't believe that the men have hit their full stride in executing this strategy, hoping that Thursday will be that achievement.

"They're one of the closest packs I've ever had," Hunter said. "They're inseparable in terms of how they train and they train at an extremely high level. If they do that in the race, I think we will be a dangerous team. But we haven't quite done it yet, so I'm hoping this will be our breakout performance."

Conference Outlook
Wichita State's second American Athletic Conference championship takes place in New Orleans at The Golf Club at Audubon Park. While Hunter described the course as mostly flat, the potential of rain could make it more difficult.

UConn took home the team title for the women in 2017 while Tulsa captured their fourth straight men's championship last season. The Shockers are looking for their first athletes to obtain all-conference honors, with no runners on either side finishing in the top-15 last season.

Wichita State has only gotten a look at Tulane this year, where the men finished two spots ahead of the Green Wave in Pre-Nationals and the women finished 16 spots ahead of them. This will be the first time the Shockers get a look at the rest of the 10 teams in the conference, making it a challenge to prepare ahead of time for what Thursday's meet will bring.

"Trying to figure out the conference cross country picture is a struggle," Hunter said. "I was able to do it probably easier in the Missouri Valley because I knew the courses, I knew the teams, we raced them off and on or at least somebody went head-to-head with a Missouri Valley team that maybe we raced during the race. I could just figure it out. In [the American], we don't race each other until the conference meet and we don't run on the same courses...So I'm doing my best to guess how this is going to come out and how it will play out."