by (Lawrence, Kansas) – Bacone College junior Jackson Thomas (Navajo Nation) placed 5th overall this past weekend at the University of Kansas Rim Rock Classic.
He covered the grueling 8K course with a time of 24:20.8 to be the only non-NCAA division runner to finish in the top 30. Bacone college is a member of the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA).
After the race Jackson said, “It feels good to (run against NCAA), I know there is better competition out there and it makes you work harder.”
There was only one minor setback for Jackson, during the race while he was in the running with the pack another runner stepped on his shoe causing it to come off so he had to stop briefly to find his shoe and then put it back on. Even with that set back he was only 11 seconds behind the 2nd place finisher.
Head coach Clay Mayes said, “I think they did successful, they ran way faster than they did at Missouri Southern as a whole. I told Jackson (Thomas) that he wasn’t going to match his time at Missouri Southern (24:18) and then he matched his time.”
As a team Bacone finished 3rd in the college division behind Nebraska-Kearny (NCAAD2) and Central College(NCAAD3). Other scoring finishers for Bacone include Fermin Villagran (25:23.6), Carlos Roa (25:39.5), Zech VanFleet (26:12.4), and Eduardo Roa (26:36.3) Justin Littleman (26:39.2) and Nick Crisner (27:07.2) finished out the top 7 runners for the Bacone squad.
Bacone will travel to the Oklahoma Baptist University Invite next week on October 10th.
