DEVIL DYNASTY: Allen sweeps conference titles for second year in a row

HUTCHINSON — The Allen Community College cross country squads swept the Jayhawk East Conference championships for the second-straight season on Saturday in Hutchinson.
The Red Devil men also were able to win the NJCAA Region IX race despite entering the race as underdogs to Butler Community College. Butler is currently the No. 4 ranked team in the country while Allen is ranked No. 7.
“We were counted out, even though we were the region champion last year,” Allen coach Vince DeGrado said. “I don’t think they expected us to be up there and I don’t know why they wouldn’t have. They weren’t ready for us.
“I felt like we were actually the favorites. To be the man, you got to beat the man and we were still the defending champions.”
Allen sophomore and Wichita-native Ricardo Banuelos was the first runner from either school to cross the finish line with 26:04.41 to take third place. Despite the third-place time both Banuelos and DeGrado expect his time to improve in two weeks at nationals.
“I didn’t run my best,” Banuelos said. “I didn’t feel like my legs were underneath me… I’m kind of disappointed, but I’ll get them at nationals.
“I like being the underdog, because the best knock-out punch is the one you don’t see coming.”
DeGrado said that Banuelos was affected by a heavy training load going into the race as he was preparing more for nationals than the regional.
“I told him after the race, we would not have won without you,” DeGrado said. “But this was not about you and your performance, we were going to have your performance no matter what, you are a front-runner. It was about his teammates picking him up and that was how we were going to win.”
Even with the disappointment in his time, Banuelos was still able to get the Allen men the early advantage on their rivals, but the Grizzlies quickly responded by having Boniface Kiptoo – a native of Eldoret, Kenya – finish in fourth place.
“This one was sweet, because they have three international guys, who are probably older than our guys,” DeGrado said. “Those are the rules and they can play by them, but I just don’t believe in that. I think it should be about coaching and development instead of who has the most money and can purchase talent.”
Allen freshman Anthony Glasgow finished fifth for Allen with a 26:21.4.
Butler had the next two finishers with a pair of Kenyans, Emmanuel Biwott and Eliud Koech finishing sixth and seventh.
Allen sophomore Philip Lageman, from Bowling Green, Mo., crossed the finish line in eighth place to make sure the two squads were neck-and-neck after three runners.
Freshmen Paul Becker, another Wichita product, and Houston-native Ludreche Bouanga made sure that Allen was able to secure the region title by finishing right with each other in 14th and 15th respectively. Becker finished in 27:34.01 and Bouanga had a time of 27:36.14.
Their finishes wrapped up the team race by locking Allen into a team score of 45, a number Butler couldn’t match. The Grizzlies finished in second with a 55, but Allen’s sixth and seventh runners — Alejandro Ruizin 18th and Ben Lucier in 19th —  were able to cross the line before Butler’s fifth and final team-scoring runner was able to.
“Our top-seven just stepped up,” DeGrado said.
The performance will surely raise the Red Devils in the national ranks before the national meet in two weeks in El Dorado.
The Allen runners performance was good enough to dominate the Jayhawk East portion of the race where Banuelos, Glasgow and Lagemann finished 1-2-3 and Becker and Bouanga were fifth and sixth. Ruiz and Lucier finished in the top-10 as well with eighth- and ninth-place times respectively.
The Red Devils crushed all the competition that the rest of the conference presented with Johnson County Community College finishing 40 points behind Allen, 17-57
“For me personally, this is my 11th year of coaching and I’ve gotten three region championships at Cowley in my four years there and I’ve gotten two here,” DeGrado said. “This one is my favorite of all. This one hasn’t been as stressful and its been so much fun. We were a family out there. The guys were cheering for the girls and the girls were cheering for the guys. It was just so much fun to be apart of that.”
The Red Devil women faced a much stiffer challenge in their conference race as the Red Devils entered the competition as the ninth-ranked team in the nation, but rival Cowley County Community College came in as the eighth-ranked team. Even though the race featured three other teams ranked in the nation’s top-15, it appeared like it would come down to Allen and Cowley County for both the conference and region championships.
It played out just that way.
“I was a lot more nervous on the girls’ side,” DeGrado said. “I feel like if you run that race ten times you would get ten different results between the two teams.”
Allen’s Kaitlyn Shoemaker finished first in the conference with a 18:39.06, to beat the next closest conference runner by 44 seconds. That next runner was Cowley County’s Naomi Similus with a 19:23.04.
“Overall, I think I ran a good race,” Shoemaker  said. “With the weather and the course, it wasn’t a day to P.R. or run really fast, but I did what I could with what I had.”
Allen’s Vicky Ibarra and Abby Steinhauser were right behind their rival with 19:28.73 and 19:33.95 times to take third and fourth respectively.
“Vicky stepped up big time and Abby was huge,” DeGrado said. “Our top-three girls were huge for us.”
Cowley County rounded out its team-scoring runners by finishing 7-8-9-10.
Allen’s Kristina Silvers took 11th and it would all come down to Allen’s fifth runner.
“It was just one of those days for Kristina,” DeGrado said. “I think her blood sugar was low and she said she had the shakes a little bit. She has honestly been with Abby in workouts.”
Hannah Johnson secured the team conference title by finishing in 14th place with a 21:09.41.
“That course wasn’t very friendly to Hannah or Kristina,” DeGrado said. “But they didn’t quit.”
The Red Devils edged out Cowley County 33-36 to notch their second-straight conference title.
Unfortunately for the Red Devils, when the other schools’ times were added in for the region team standings, Cowley County turned the tables on Allen and won by a 63-70 score.
“We had them beat, we really did,” DeGrado said. “Our four and five tried their best, but seven points is easy to make up.”
The Cowley County-Allen rivalry will have its final chapter of the season in two weeks in El Dorado when the two teams battle for a podium spot in two weeks at nationals in El Dorado.
“We have two more weeks to get better,” DeGrado said. “Our season is not about the conference and region meet. We have two more weeks to become a podium team.”