COLUMBIA, Mo. – The Wichita State men's cross country team took down two nationally-ranked teams on its way to a third-place team finish Friday morning at the Gans Creek Classic.
 
"As a team, that was an impressive showing," head coach Kirk Hunter. "That's going to make some people pay attention to us."
 
The Shocker men finished second behind No. 16 Arkansas and receiving votes Tennessee with 170 points, defeating No. 28 Missouri and No. 30, who placed sixth and 10^th, respectively.
 
Senior Nicholas Kipchirchir and junior Elkana Kipruto led the Shockers with top-five individual finishes as Kipchirchir took third with a personal-best 8K time of 22:40.5 and Kipruto finished three seconds behind him in fifth with a time of 22:43.5.
 
"I was anticipating that Elly and Nicholas would be where they were," Hunter said. "Even though Elly had a bad start and was way back at the 1K mark, he still managed to come back and get fifth, but the people that really pulled it off for us were the next three."
 
Junior Kelvin Kipyego was the third Shocker across the line, finishing 51^st with a time of 23:51.8, and sophomore Austin Carrera and junior Dennis Rono rounded out the top five, taking 55^th (23:53.9) and 59^th (23:56.5).
 
"Kelvin ran a really good race, Austin had an unbelievably fabulous first race of the year, and Dennis ran a lifetime PR," Hunter said. "Those guys really came through for us."
 
The Wichita State men currently rank ninth in the Midwest region and are looking to move up after Friday's strong showing.
 
"The big thing we have to do is have our entire team close the gap on Elly and Nicholas and go sub-23:30 if we want to go win a conference title and go to the national meet," Hunter said. "That's what the guys are thinking about now. If we start doing some numbers like that, people are going to pay attention to us."
 
Sophomore Vivien Kipkorir led the Wichita State women with a 17^th-place finish, running over a minute faster than her previous personal best with a time of 20:01.3, good for No. 2 in Wichita State history.
 
"I'm really proud of her; in terms of race strategy, she ran exactly, the way she should have," Hunter said. "She didn't quite finish the last 1,000 meters as well as she could have because she's never been in that realm before, so this is a new experience to feel that kind of pain for that amount of time, but you can't really say anything bad about having the second-best time in school history like that in a really good field."
 
Francesca Alvarado was the next Shocker to finish, taking 149^th with a time of 21:39.7, while Isabelle Hartnett (184^th; 21:58.2), Irene Andujar Martinez (196^th; 22:10.1) and Jordyn Picolet (199^th; 22:12.6) rounded out the scoring positions for the Shocker women.
 
Wichita State has the next two weekends off before traveling to Terre Haute, Ind. for the Pre-National Invitational at the LaVern Gibson Championship Cross Country Course on Friday, Oct. 16.