BATON ROUGE -- Southeastern Louisiana's Kalphys Kemboi won the LSU Invitational cross country meet Saturday, crossing the finish line less than three hundreths of a second ahead of teammate Henry Rop. Kemboi finished the 8K event with a time of 25:38.71, while Rop came in at 25:38.94.As a team, the Southeastern men came in fourth place. The Houston Cougars captured the meet championship with 29 points, followed by Mississippi Valley State (57 points), LSU (87) and Southeastern (93). Louisiana-Lafayette rounded out the top five men's teams with 136 points.
Following Kemboi and Rop, the Lions did not have another athlete complete the race until Nelphat Bolt at the 28:01.78 mark, which put him at 31st place. Bolt missed last Saturday's Azalea City Classic due to illness (as did Rop) and was still not back to full strength. The other Lions to score were Scott Richardson (43rd place, 28:58.68) and Kyle Golden (52nd place, 29:30.06).
"We came in at the top, one and two, and that's outstanding," head coach Sean Brady said. "If (Kemboi and Rop) have this type of race a month from now, they have a shot at conference. We have to keep momentum going at this point."
On the women's side, Southeastern's Dorcus Kapkiai stayed stride for stride with Houston's Stephanie Aldea in the lead pack until the 3K point of the 5K event. Aldea ended up winning with a time of 19:01.00, while Kapkiai finished fifth at 19.40.07. Fellow Lady Lion Naomi Jeruto was close behind at 19:45.01, good enough for seventh place. Other Southeastern finishers included Kim Gastinell (31st place, 20:59.26), Bethany Burst (53rd place, 22:13.78) and Courtney Schultheis (69th place, 23:04.70).
Houston swept the individual and team titles in the women's race, as the Lady Cougars scored 40 points. Nicholls (56), Lamar (65), LSU (94) and Tulane (143) rounded out the top five, while Southeastern placed sixth, ahead of teams including Louisiana-Lafayette, Mississippi College, Jackson State and Southern.
"We beat teams we can beat and should beat," Brady said of the Southeastern women. "We're running great at the top two spots, but the supporting cast has to step up. Congratulations to Dorcus and Naomi. They ran outstanding races."
The McNeese Cowboy Stampede comes next on the cross country schedule. The event is next Saturday, Oct. 3, in Lake Charles.