Championship Central

PITTSBURG, Kan. – Securing points throughout the weekend in 13 of 20 events, the Hutchinson Community College men’s track and field team made program history by securing their first NJCAA Region 6 Indoor Track and Field team title inside the Robert W. Plaster Center on the campus of Pittsburg State University in Pittsburg, Kansas.

Finishing as the only team of the 16 scoring teams to break the 100-point mark in the meet, the Blue Dragons scored 109 total points to beat out NJCAA Region 6 runners-up Coffeyville (93 points) and third-place finisher Butler (89 points). In fourth place with 77 total points was Barton Community College while Garden City Community College rounded out the top five in the team scores with 60 total points.

Eight of the 13 events that Hutchinson scored in came on the final day of action on Sunday, with HCC having four individual Region 6 Champions with Elisha Williams, Farrin, Mangelson, and Jayce Spencer earning individual titles on day one of the meet followed by Leo LeGrand who added an individual title in the 1,000 meters on Sunday.

Hutchinson also earned their first Kansas Jayhawk Community College Conference West Division team title by scoring 158 total points to outpace division runners-up Garden City (122 points) and third-place Barton (118 points) with fourth-place Cloud County also breaking the 100-point mark in the division scoring (110 points). In the KJCCC East Division, Region 6 runners-up Coffeyville earned the division crown by scoring 173 points to edge out Butler (159 points) with Cowley (136 points) taking third as Highland (95 points) and Fort Scott (76 points) were the fourth and fifth-place teams in the East Division.

Post-meet awards were collected by individuals from six different schools as Cloud County’s Abdelaziz Benbrahim was the NJCAA Region 6 Track Athlete of the Meet while Barton’s Trevon Hamer earned Region 6 Field Athlete of the Meet. NJCAA Region 6 High Point Athlete of the Meet was earned by Butler’s Ishmael Acheampong with Coffeyville head coach Robert Wood being named KJCCC Men’s Head Coach of the Year and Hutchinson’s Jafet Molinares earning KJCCC Men’s Assistant Coach of the Year honors.

Throughout the weekend, three new NJCAA Region 6 Indoor Track and Field Championship meet records were set, with two of the three records set in field events. Saturday afternoon saw Garden City’s Rhet Punt record a mark of 20.52 meters (67 feet, 4 inches) in the weight throw to break a record that was set by Coffeyville National Champion Johnnie Jackson in 2015 while Sunday saw Barton’s Trevon Hamer break former Olympian and NJCAA Track and Field Hall of Famer Melvin Lister’s triple jump meet record by recording a mark of 16.25 meters (53 feet – 3.75 inches). Hamer’s mark also tied a facility record inside the Plaster Center that was previously held outright by DeVontae Steele (Texas A&M-Commerce, 2018). Also breaking a Region 6 indoor meet record was Coffeyville’s 4x400 meter relay team of Usir Bey, Latrell Johnson, Xander Roberts-Bogin, and Zyan Greene) as the quartet finished the final event of the day in a time of 3:10.23 to break the previous record of 3:12.61 which was set by Butler in 2020.