Jepchirchir and Kinnane lead Tigers at Gans Creek Classic

COLUMBIA, Mo. - Freshman Brenda Jepchirchir and senior Ryan Kinnane led the Auburn cross country teams to strong finishes for the women’s and men’s squads at the Gans Creek Classic in Columbia, Missouri. Making her cross country debut, Jepchirchir took gold in the women’s 6k race with a time of 19:50.10, while Kinnane ran the best 8k of his Auburn career with a fourth-place finish in a time of 23:10.30 at the Gans Creek Cross Country Course.  

“Today was a strong start to the season,” Auburn cross country coach Aaron Kindt said. “I thought both teams came prepared to bring their best efforts this morning. We have a lot we can build off today.” 

The men finished third of 36 teams in the team standings with 167 points, while the women took sixth of 38 teams coming in at 182 points. 

“Brenda is a special talent,” Kindt said. “To come in and run at that level already, having only been on campus for two months shows the potential she possesses. Her presence really opens our team to take some more risks.” 

Racing for the first time for the Tigers, Jepchirchir set a Gans Creek Cross Country Course record and beat her closest competitor by 3.6 seconds (19:50.10).   

“I think today our women’s group might have been a bit too aggressive at the start and we paid for it on the back end of the race,” Kindt said. “Those are risks we are willing to take though. I think we learned a lot from today that we can use to tweak out race plan moving forward.” 

On the women’s side, the second finisher for the Tigers was junior Gené Coetzee. She finished 24th overall with a time of 20:34.60. Not far behind Coetzee was senior Samantha Rogers (20:58.40), senior Hallie Porterfield (21:09.20) and sophomore Audrey Dunn (21:22.20) to round out the top 5 finishers for the women.  

“Gene Coetzee and Samantha Rogers did a great job continuing to fight despite the intense start,” Kindt said. “Hallie Porterfield ran a stellar paced race and Audrey Dunn with a nice bounce back race, helped finish off a good meet on the women’s side.”  

Led by Kinnane’s PR-worthy performance to earn fourth overall (23:10.30), the men outdistanced No. 28 nationally ranked Ole Miss, who finished seventh in the team standings.  

“Our guys looked very strong today,” Kindt said. “Ryan Kinnane was the tone setter. He was methodical and raced a near perfect race plan today.” 

The next Auburn runner to cross after Kinnane was freshman Nickson Chebii, who was 20th overall, crossing in 23:38.40. Chebii was followed by sophomore Max Hardin (23:40.20), senior Carson Bedics (24:11.30) and sophomore Evan Hill rounded out the scoring for the men with a time of 24:22.00.  

“Nickson Chebii and Max Hardin had very strong openers as well, a noticeable leap forward for Max Hardin in his second year,” Kindt said. “He and Nickson I believe will continue to only get more comfortable running in the front. We also had very solid efforts from Cardon Bedics, Evan Hill, Cooper Atkins and Hayden Judge. Those four will be critical as we move deeper into the year.”