by Ricky Quintana

Cary, NC - NC A & T senior Deavion Deleon and Fayetteville State sophomore Brian Kiprop won Cedric Walker HBCU Challenge individual titles and N.C. Central won the women’s team and Fayetteville State men’s team titles at the Great American XC Festival Friday night.

Deleon, who transferred from the University of Nebraska, won in a personal best of 17:36.2 to win for the first time this season. Her last race was at the adidas XC Challenge on September 19 where she finished 33rd. She wanted to use that experience for Friday night’s race.

Deavion Deleon Interview

“ My plan coming in was to open up the same as I did last meet where I opened up in a 5:30. Today I opened up in a 5:25 which was a similar range,” she said. “ I tried to hold on as long as I could, but it was kind of hard since there weren’t any people in front of me. I was able to get pretty close to my time.”

Deleon’s fast pace from the start gapped the field by 16 seconds at the 2k mark to 35 seconds at the 3.2k mark to her final margin of 51 seconds as she bettered her time of 17:38.8. She hadn’t raced a cross country season since her freshman year in 2022 and looks forward to seeing how it can help her during the track season.

“ Because I’ve been injured in the past and haven’t run cross country, I haven’t had an endurance base going into the indoor and outdoor cross country season so I’m really excited to have that base going into indoor and outdoor season.”

Fayetteville State duo of freshman Faith Kiplimo and sophomore Videlma Jebet finished second and third, but weren’t able to fend off eventual team winner, N.C. Central and runner-up, University of Maryland Eastern Shore (UMES) who finished with 62 and 66 points. Fayetteville State finished with 79 points and N.C. A & T finished with 81 to close out one of the tightest finishes in history.

Fayetteville State Broncos men’s team didn’t have the same problem as they won with 32 points to N.C. Central’s 72 and UMES’ 77 points.

Bronco sophomore Brian Kiprop pulled away from sophomore teammate Franklin Chipchirchir over the final 3.2 kilometers to win 24:31.4 to 24:38.4. Sophomore teammates Dominic Malel placed fourth 25:05.8 and Ian Kiprono finished eighth 25:53.7 and freshman teammate Rowny Kipchirchir finished 18th 26:52.8 to complete the scoring.

Brian Kiprop Interview

“It was a matter of teamwork and not the personal stuff. We did our best,” said Kiprop who is in his first year after transferring from Crowder College(Neosho, MO) where he was injured most of the time. “ We train as a team and our program is really good. We have to thank our coaches for the motivation and the teamwork we have.”