STILLWATER, Okla. – Wichita State's Elkana Kipruto became the first Shocker man since 1992 to punch his ticket to the NCAA Championships, finishing seventh at the NCAA Midwest Regional Friday morning at the OSU Cross Country Course.
"He just ran really smart," head coach
Kirk Hunter said. "That's what he does. When you run the race the way you're supposed to, success can happen, and each time he's raced, he's just been extremely intelligent in the way he approached the race."
After the first 2K of the race, Kipruto never dropped out of the top 20, consistently making moves with the group he was in to finish seventh with a time of 30:10.0.
"What I told the men to do is just keep covering moves, that there would be people moving, and when they do, you just have to keep covering and covering and covering," Hunter said. "And within the group [Kipruto] was in, he did that. He ran extremely well, but it wasn't just about the fact that he qualified; it was the fact that he ran away from some exceptionally good athletes over the last thousand meters to give himself enough space to be the top individual qualifier of the meet."
As the top individual finisher behind the racers from Oklahoma State and Iowa State, whose teams earned auto-qualifying bids to the NCAA Championships, Kipruto locked in his spot at nationals.
"I'm really proud of him," Hunter said. "[It's been] thirty-three years, just like conference champion, and now he's an NCAA men's qualifier and my first men's qualifier. I'm excited for what he did and proud of the fact he was able to accomplish something that he hasn't done yet."
For just the fifth time in program history, multiple Shocker men earned a spot on the All-Region team as
Adrian Diaz Lopez joined Kipruto on the podium, claiming his second All-Region award with a 15
th-place finish and a time of 30:44.8. Kipruto's seventh-place finish was the best by a Wichita State man since Mornay Annadale won the regional in 1992, and Diaz Lopez's 15
th-place finish was the second best since 1992, making him the sixth Shocker man in program history and first since Mickael Colin in 2002 to claim multiple All-Region awards.
"Adrian was in a spot where there was a group of about seven or eight guys who were all in the 25
th spot [before the last K], and when I got to the finish line and saw him come around in 16
th place at the time, I was shocked because he just buried people that last thousand meters, and that's a really hard last K to run," Hunter said. "He ran exceptionally well over that last thousand meters. Best cross country race of his life."
Lucy Ndungu claimed her second All-Region award, placing 25
th in the women's 6K race with a time of 21:03.5. She led the Shockers to a 14
th-place team finish after coming in ranked 14
th in the region as a team, giving them their best regional team finish since 2019. Ndungu is the 10
th Wichita State woman to claim multiple All-Region honors and is the first since Winny Koskei in 2019.
"Lucy coming back from the year she had [last year], to be able to be top 25, she had to pass people in the last 100 meters to get that spot, and it's a testament to her ability to battle and compete at a high level," Hunter said. "I'm proud of what she did."
Two other Shocker women finished in the top 100 with
Mercy Jepkoech taking 36
th with a time of 21:24.6 and
Sarah Bertry placing 65
th in 21:53.0.
Faith Ekart and
Francesca Alvarado rounded out the scoring for the Shockers, finishing 145
th (23:01.6) and 152
nd (23:07.1), respectively.
"That's the most excited I've been for a women's team in years," Hunter said. "If you look at the results and you look at each one of our top five girls, you'll see that they were moving up, moving up, moving up. The last half of the race, those girls moved up considerably, and I am really proud of them battling to be in the top 14 as a team in this region. That's a huge step forward for our women's program."
The NCAA Selection Show airs on Saturday, Nov. 15 at 4 p.m. on NCAA.com, where the first four regional finishers not from an automatic qualifying or at-large team will be announced, as well as the two at-large individual selections. Kipruto has already secured his spot in the national race, but Diaz Lopez currently sits outside of that top four as the seventh individual finisher not from an auto-qualifying team. If OU claims an at-large team bid, he will become the fifth individual finisher from the Midwest Region, giving him a shot at one of the at-large bids, depending on the placements of the other eight regions' finishers.
MEN'S RESULTS - 8th place - 247 points
*All-Region
WOMEN'S RESULTS - 14th place - 422 points
