INDIANAPOLIS – With his top 10 finish Friday morning at the NCAA South Regional, University of South Alabama cross country runner Kirami Yego earned an at-large bid to the NCAA Championships set to be held next weekend in Tallahassee, Fla., as announced by the NCAA on Saturday.
Yego crossed the line with a time of 29:42.89 and finished eighth in the 10k race regional hosted by North Alabama at the John Hunt Cross Country Running Park. Yego's time marked the sixth-fastest in the distance in program history, eclipsing David Kimani's time of 30:06 set at the NCAA Championships (11/22/99) in Bloomington, Ind. It was also the fastest in the distance since Tonny Okello (2005) at the NCAA South Regional.
His selection to compete at the NCAA Championships marks the 15th overall by a male runner and first since Christoph Graf did so during the 2014 season. He is just one of eight male Jaguar runners to compete at the championship event, joining Graf (2014), Zac Edwards (2009), Micah Tirop (2009, '08, '07), Okello (2006, '05, '04), Vincent Rono (2006, '05), Brian Murray (2000, 1997), Kimani (1999 – Won national championship) and Jeff Campbell (1991).
This fall, Yego has been named Sun Belt Conference Runner of the Week on three occasion, the first to do so in league history since Louisiana's Stanley Limoh also earned the accolade three times during the 2017 season. He is the first male South runner to earn the honor three times in the same season since Tirop, who did so on four occasions (9/17, 9/30, 10/14 and 10/21) in 2008.
Last month, the Kapenguria, Kenya, native, became the 11th male runner from the South Alabama to win individual to win a conference title he crossed the line with a time of 23:5.3 in the 8k race at the 2021 Sun Belt Conference Cross Country Championships held in Mobile. With the win, he earned first-team all-conference honors for the second straight season.
Yego and the rest of the field are scheduled to compete at the NCAA Championships on Saturday, Nov. 20 at 10:10 a.m. (CT).
Kirami Yego – 2021 Cross Country Season & Career Highlights
- Two-time First-Team All-Sun Belt Conference selection (2021, '20)
- Three career victories (Career) / Two 2021 season victories (Azalea City Classic and Sun Belt Conference Championship
- Sun Belt Conference Champion (8k) – 11th individual title in program history
- Six top 5 career finishes and finished inside the top 5 in three of his six races this fall
- Set three personal best during the 2021 season
- Set a pair of program top 10 times in the 8k
- Finished 13th or better in all but one meet this fall and in nine of his 10 career races
- Four-time SBC Runner of the Week (Career) and three-time Sun Belt Conference Runner of the Week (2021)
- First SBC runner to be named league runner of the week three times in a season since Louisiana's Stanley Limoh (2017)
- One of three runners in program history to be named the SBC Runner of the Week three or more times in a season (Micah Tirop – 2008) and Vincent Rono (2005)
- One of only five runners at South to receive the honor three or more times in their career (Tirop [8], Rono [6], Samson Kipchirchir [4] and Tonny Okello [3])
- One of eight runners in program history to advance to the NCAA Championships and the 15th overall appearance by a male runner
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