Lady Busters third

By ROB HOUSTON
houston@gctelegram.com

With five Jayhawk Conference schools ranked in the top 20 nationally, Monday's women's Region VI cross country meet figured to be a battle.

The No. 8 Garden City Broncbusters, competing with just five runners all season, were right in the mix once again Monday, finishing third behind No. 2 Butler and No. 7 Johnson County.

GCCC finished with 77 team points. Butler won with 29 points while Johnson County finished with 72. Cowley was fourth (101), followed by No. 20 Cloud County (129), No. 16 Hutchinson (131), Highland (168) and Colby (193).

"We were hoping to place second, and we're always trying to go after Butler. We didn't get them but we're gradually gaining on them a little bit," GCCC freshman Nikki Knowles said. "Hopefully we'll do better at nationals."

Knowles and sophomore Camille Johnson finished 7-8 overall, earning both All-Region VI and All-Jayhawk West honors. Knowles finished in 20 minutes, 52.96 seconds, while Johnson was right behind in 20:58.72.

"I came out a little bit slower, trying something new," Johnson said. "I didn't like it as much, but I was stronger throughout my race. I came out slower because I wanted to know if I could speed it up at the end. It's really hard to tell here because the ending was so hard with the two hills.

"I feel like I did really good. I came in three places higher than I normally do, so something worked."

Leticia Padilla finished 16th overall (21:34.86), Bobbie Gay was 19th (21:55.84) while Heather Patterson finished 30th (22:53.74).

"Hopefully they've learned something from Camille and Bobbie Gay," GCCC coach Dan Delgado said. "If these girls train hard, there's no telling. But it takes time to get that confidence and cross that line to ?Do I want to train hard every day?' All of them are inching toward that. They really are."

Butler's Diane Nukuri ran away with the women's individual title (17:42.20), winning by nearly two minutes over Cloud County's Kellyn Johnson.

Next up for the Broncbusters is the NJCAA national tournament Nov. 5 at Rim Rock Farms in Lawrence.