Posted: Sep 04, 2022

Men's Cross Country Opens Season at George Kyte Classic

Sunday, September 4, 2022 - 8:30 am | Dylan Kessler

Flagstaff, Ariz. - The Thunderbirds men's cross country team had their season-opening meet on Saturday at the George Kyte Classic, hosted by Northern Arizona University.

The meet featured 10 men's teams (Arizona, Central Arizona, Embry-Riddle AZ, Fort Lewis (CO), Grand Canyon, Mesa, NAU, Phoenix, Pima, and Utah Tech).

The T-Birds took third place in the open-division scoring with 69 points, beating out fellow ACCAC teams CAC (84 points), Pima (113 points), and Phoenix (181 points). Fort Lewis was the top team in the open-division scoring, scoring 29 points and ERAZ was second with 63 points.

Yotuel Garcia was the first T-Bird to cross the finish line, placing ninth with a time of 23:30.6 on the 4.5-mile course. Connor King (22nd - 25:12.5), Yael Caballero Ferro (26th - 25:20.8), Greyson Akers (36th - 26:06.4), and Javier Garcia (39th - 26:28) rounded out the five scorers for the T-Birds.

"I thought we ran well overall as a group with very good performances," said Head Coach Dan Pescador. "Yotuel ran tremendous and put himself in a good position. Connor had a nice breakthrough and picked up where he left off last fall at nationals. There was an unfortunate collision at the start where we had two of our guys go down, Javier and Wyatt. No doubt it impacted their race. But all things aside I'm very proud of their team effort."

"Our men's team did an excellent job in their first meet of the season at NAU's Buffalo Park course at 7,000 ft elevation," said Assistant Coach Spencer Peterson. "Yotuel was outstanding and finished as the top junior college athlete. Connor and Yael provided a nice 2-3 punch, while Greyson and Javier helped the T-Birds finish as the top junior college team. The team goal is to have our top five athletes finish between 24:40 and 26:00 at the national championship meet in Tallahassee, FL., and a top three podium recognition."

Up next for the T-Birds, they will head down to Coolidge next Saturday to compete in the Vaquero CAMPY Invitational.

Click HERE for the complete results.

T-Birds men's finishers at the George Kyte Classic (4.5 miles):

Yotuel Garcia (9th - 23:30.6)

Connor King (22nd - 25:12.5)

Yael Caballero Ferro (26th - 25:20.8)

Greyson Akers (36th - 26:06.4)

Javier Garcia (39th - 26:28)

Joshua Lumpkin (41st - 26:38.1)

Anthony Jones (47th - 27:14.3)

Samuel Van Alstine (53rd - 27:41)

Wyatt Williams (64th - 28:15.4)