Gaston College had four All-Region selections - Abbygale King (second from left), Maddie Frank (third from left), Lexi Birtwistle (middle) and Keirieonna Wilson (far right) in the Oct. 26 region championship meet in Shelby.

Posted: Nov 05, 2024

Gaston College cross country team poised to set history with NJCAA national appearances

Gaston College's cross country program sets team history in the next few days when it makes its National Junior College Athletic Association national championship debut.

Fresh off the school's first Region 10 championship in late October, the Rhinos of head coach Kody Kubbs have qualified for the NJCAA cross country national championships on Nov. 9 at Pole Green Park in Richmond, Va. and sophomore Keirieonna Wilson, Lexi Birtwistle, Maddie Frank and Abbygale King will compete in the NJCAA's Half Marathon championship event three days later on Nov. 12 at Dorey Park in Richmond, Va.

"Our goal since our first meeting was to win the region title and advance to the national championships," said Kubbs, whose team had finished as Region 10 runner-up in 2022 and 2023 before winning this year's title.

In 2022 and 2023, the program set history with individual qualifiers Victoria Perez and Wilson.

Perez would finish 134th out of 183 runners at Appalachee Regional Park in Tallahassee, Fla., in the 2022 championships while Wilson finished 85th out of 180 runners at John Hunt Cross Country Running Park in Huntsville, Ala., last year.

This year, Gaston College will have a chance to record a team score as Wilson, Birtwistle, Frank and King earned All-Region 10 honors by finishing first, fourth, fifth and sixth, respectively in the region championships in Shelby. And Abigale Harris (9th), Alayna Cook (14th) and Sara Scoggins (21st) also competed in the event.

Wilson has been Gaston College's invididual medalist in all nine meets in which she has competed in her two-year career.

"I went into this year very serious and I had high expectations for myself," said Wilson, a sophomore from Statesville. "I ran a lot of mileage last summer hoping to improve."

Wilson set personal bests starting with her initial meet as a freshman last fall and she set her career-best of 19 minutes, 39.5 seconds in the USC Upstate Invitational in Spartanburg, S.C., last month.

"She's just been awesome," Kubbs said of Wilson. "She just keeps checking all of the boxes of her goals. She's a coach's dream because we always have to keep re-evaluating her goals because she keeps reaching them."

The other runners also have set personal bests this season as well led by freshman Birtwistle and Frank of Belmont's South Point High, sophomores King from South Point, Harris and Cook from Gastonia's Piedmont Community Charter and freshman Scoggins from Huntersville's North Mecklenburg High School.

Kubbs credits a determined work ethic for making this season's goals come true.

"It's not easy to convince people to wake up at 4:30 a.m. to come to practice and then go to college classes," Kubbs said of his team's practice schedule that frequently called for 5:15 a.m. practice sessions. "So that's a testament to these young ladies. And they also did it with a smile on their face."