Hutchinson CC Sports Information
WICHITA – Unable to run in the indoor season as a freshman, Hutchinson Community College sophomore Andrew Kibet made a grand indoor debut on Friday at the Shocker Prelude, the Blue Dragons' 2020 season-opening meet.
Kibet broke the Hutchinson indoor 600-meter men's record, winning the event in a time of 1 minute, 19.35 seconds. That time also broke the Shocker Prelude and Heskett Center records and qualified the multi-time track and cross country All-American for the NJCAA Indoor Championships in March.
Kibet, who missed the 2019 indoor season because of injury, broke the old record of Elijah Smith, whose time of 12:20.55 was set at the 2019 Region VI Indoor Championships in Pittsburg. Kibet now owns three Blue Dragon track or cross country records, also holding the cross country 8,000-meter mark and outdoor 800-meter record.
Kibet was one of three Blue Dragons who turned in national qualifying marks on Friday.
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Sophomore Sylvester ran a PR and improved his second-fastest Hutchinson indoor 3,000-meter time with a runner-up performance of 8:41.52.
Sophomore sprinter Jared Scott qualified for nationals in the 60-meter preliminaries with a time of 6.86 seconds. He improved his time and finished third in the 60 finals at 6.79 seconds. That mark was just 0.01 seconds off Scott's PR.
Scott then earned Hutchinson's second event win, taking the 200-meters in 22.43 seconds.
The Blue Dragons had 3 of the top 5 finishers in the 200. Alex Bengtssen was third in 23.32. Jordan Hawkins was fifth in 23.78 seconds and Nicomus Craig was ninth in 24.30.
Freshman Teagan Flanagan had a strong Blue Dragon debut. The distance runner played fifth in the mile run (4:34.34) and was fifth in the 3,000 meters (9:07.91).
Hutchinson jumpers had good starts to their season on Friday.
Freshman Joshua Fielder placed third in the triple jump with a leap of 43 feet, 8 inches. Sophomore Elijah Fisher was fourth in the long jump at 22 feet, 0.25 inch.
Hutchinson will compete at the Jayhawk Invitational next Friday at Anschutz Pavilion in Lawrence.