Hutchinson CC Sports Information

All the way back at the preseason Blue Dragon time trial in August, Hutchinson Community College cross country head coach Justin Riggs received an early sign just how good his women's team might be in 2022.

Third-year sophomore and the team's top runner over her first two seasons, Louise Cocking, posted a PR on that August day of the time trial. Cocking finished fourth.

"It really showed how well we could do as a team," said the All-America Cocking. "These girls have come up by leaps and bounds. We work so well together in practice. We have that balance that we all want it really badly, but we are all supportive of each other."

The Blue Dragons started the season ranked No. 2 in the preseason USTFCCCA rankings. After a one-point loss to Cloud County at the Ollie Isom Invitational, the Dragons slipped to No. 3. That's the ranking they will take into Saturday's NJCAA Division I Championship in Tallahassee Florida. The Women's Division I race is scheduled for 8:15 a.m. at Apalachee Regional Park.

"This has been a fun year," Riggs said. "We went to a lot of challenging meets. We didn't win a meet until Region VI, but we challenged ourselves and ran against a lot of NCAA Division I and Division II teams and some good NAIA schools, knowing that it would benefit you when it came to the postseason."

Outside of Cocking, the top five runners in each meet have been primarily freshmen.

Serenity Larson has had an exceptional season. The Dodge City freshman ran the second-fastest 5K time in Blue Dragon women's history at the Greeno/Dirksen Invitational in Lincoln, Nebraska on September 17. Just 13 days later, Larson broke the school record with a time of 18:12.1 at the Chili Pepper Classic in Fayetteville, Arkansas.

"It's been a great year. I didn't expect the team to be so far up, but we've stayed up there," Larson said. "It's been an eye-opening season. In high school, I was exposed to some high-level runners and it had me prepared to run at the next level. But this season has really shown me what I am capable of."

Haven freshman Taylor Hoskinson has another freshman who has seen steady improvement in each race this year. Hoskinson finished fourth at Pratt and then turned in a key sixth-place performance in the Region VI championship.

Lindsborg freshman Gracie Lambert and Whitewater freshman Ellie Van Zelfen have also been part of the team scoring this year.

"We knew last year's recruiting class was going to be a pretty good class," Riggs said. "I had high expectations. A lot of them have competed at a pretty high level in high school and they've carried that over to here. There's a lot of talent and they've performed as expected."

Another sign the Dragons were set to have a solid season was when 7 of the 9 runners posted PRs at the Greeno/Dirksen Classic. The Dragons were placed in the top division running against mainly NCAA Division I and II runners.

Then came a one-point loss to Cloud County at the Ollie Isom Classic in El Dorado. Two weeks later, the Blue Dragons won their first-ever Division I Region VI championship, narrowly defeating Cloud County by eight points.

"We really wanted the region bad because we didn't run our best at Butler," Hoskinson said. "We knew we were going to come back."

At the regional, Larson was third, Cocking was fourth and Hoskinson was sixth. Lambert placed 13 and sophomore Courtney Baetz was the key fifth-place runner to placed 30th.

The Top 5 teams entering the NJCAA Championships are Southern Idaho, New Mexico Junior College, Hutchison, Cloud County and Iowa Central.

The Blue Dragons' best finish in a Division I championship was seventh two years ago. The best overall national finish was winning the 2001 Division I national championship.