RONO WINS NATIONAL TITLE; DRAGONS PLACE 3RD AT NJCAA CHAMPIONSHIPS
Hutchinson CC Sports Information
FORT DODGE, Iowa – Not even a couple of inches of snow and sub-freezing temperatures could stop Hutchinson Community College's Mildred Rono.
The Blue Dragon freshman completed an incredible first collegiate season by becoming the first Hutchinson women's cross country runner to win the NJCAA Division I individual national championship on Saturday at Lakeside Golf Course.
Rono, along with freshmen Ashara Frater and Mali Lovett, all placed in the Top 20 to lead the fifth-ranked Blue Dragon women to a third-place team finish, Hutchinson's best Division I finish in team history – The Dragons won a Division II national championship in 2001.
Odessa rolled to a team title with 54 points. Iowa Western was second with 127 points and the Blue Dragons were third with 141 points.
This was the Hutchinson women's fourth-straight Top 10 national finish. The Dragons placed fourth in 2022, 10th in 2023 and sixth in 2024.
When Rono and the Blue Dragons woke up Saturday morning, snow flakes were flying. By the time the race started at 1 p.m. Saturday, moderate snow was falling with 2 inches already on the ground and the temperature when the gun was fired was 29 degrees.
That didn't matter to Rono, who was locked in an early dual with Iowa Western's Juliana Sakat, the only runner to beat Rono this season – doing so by 1.1 seconds at the FHSU Tiger Open on October 18.
That dual quickly turned into a Rono rout as the Blue Dragon freshman won the national championship with a time of 17:11.1, defeating Sakat by 41.2 seconds.
Rono and Sakat were virtually tied at the 1K mark with Rono leading by 0.2 seconds. At 2,000 meters, Rono led by 2.2 seconds, and then Rono broke away. Her lead grew to 15.5 seconds at the 3K mark, 31.7 seconds at the 4K split and eventually 41.2 seconds at the finish line.
Rono's national championship time was the best time by a Blue Dragon runner in an NJCAA National Championship event.
During her freshman season at Hutchinson, Rono achieved the following:
+ The NJCAA championship was her fourth race win of the season, which is a school record for a season and career;
+ She set the Blue Dragon 5K record twice this season;
+ Rono's average margin of victory in her four race wins has been 34.2 seconds;
+ She won both the Region 6 and Jayhawk West championships;
+ She was a four-time KJCCC Runner of the Week and two-time NJCAA National Runner of the Week.
Frater earned NJCAA All-America honors with a seventh-place finish on Saturday. Frater ran a time of 18:40.3, posting the fourth-fastest Blue Dragon time at an NJCAA National Championship.
Rono and Frater are the 12th and 13th NJCAA All-Americans in program history. The Dragons have had four runners earn All-America status since 2020.
Lovett earned NJCAA Coaches' All-America honors with a 17th-place performance. Her time of 19:07.8 was the seventh-fastest Blue Dragon time in Hutchinson national championship history.
Freshman Kimberlin Lovell placed 54th in a time of 20:18.8. Freshman Eva Ramey played 64th with a time of 20:32.9. Freshman Sabrina McDonald was 153rd in a time of 23:58.8.
The Hutchinson women earned their third Top 3 finish in national tournament history, but first as a Division I program.