Hutchinson CC Sports Information
Saturday, March 7, 2020
LYNCHBURG, Va. – Not a bad final act to Andrew Kibet's first and only indoor track season at Hutchinson Community College.
After a regular season and regional championship with five school records broken, Kibet saved his best for last, winning a pair of national titles at the 2020 NJCAA Indoor Track and Field Championships at Liberty University.
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Kibet claimed his second and third national championships as a Blue Dragon – he was the 2018 national cross country individual champion as well. Kibet is now a six-time NJCAA All-American (cross country, indoor track and outdoor track combined).
Kibet is the first Blue Dragon indoor national champion since Teddy Poole won the 200-meter national championship in 2007.
Kibet's body of work was completed in a span of about 1 hour, 20 minutes on Saturday.
First was the Mile run where he won the title with an NJCAA National Meet record of 4:04.51. The old national meet record was set by Dodge City's Eluid Njubi in 2000. Kibet broke that mark by 0.35 seconds and beat his own Blue Dragon school record by 4.29 seconds. The top three runners in the Mile run were all Jayhawk West runners.
Kibet completed his day with a national championship in the 1,000 meters, running 2:25.90.
Kibet scored 20 of Hutchinson's 23 team points at the 2020 indoor championships. The Blue Dragons finished 12th in the team standings.
The Blue Dragons other three points came from sophomore Sylvestre Kibarar, who placed sixth on Friday in the 5,000 meters with a time of 14:59.76. Kibarar just missed the medal stand in the 3,000-meter final, finishing ninth with a time of 8:42.23.
Other Blue Dragon performances at the 2020 NJCAA Indoor Championships:
+ Brett Hillabrand was 25th in the Mile run in a time of 4:36.94. He didn't qualify on Friday for the 1,000-meter finals, running a time of 2:39.17.
+ Jared Scott just missed on the finals of bot the 60 and 200 meters. Scott ran his second-fastest 60-meter time of the season at 6.77 seconds, but placed 11th. He was also 11th in the 200-meter preliminaries with a time of 21:42 seconds, also his second-fastest time of the season.
+ Jovan Jackson ran a time of 1:30.78 in the 600-meter prelims and didn't qualify for the finals.
The Blue Dragons begin the 2020 outdoor season on Saturday, March 21 at the Emporia State Spring Twilight.