This past Tuesday at 6:15am, surrounded by only the morning darkness and a gentle breeze, the South Plains Cross Country team hit the trail for their practice in preparation for the upcoming season.
After having an extremely small cross country roster on both the men’s and women’s sides last season, second-year Head Coach Wesley Miller is confident in the team he’s put together for 2025.
Coach Miller believes that this is the most talented pair of rosters that SPC cross country has had in the last 10 years.
With seven men and four women, expectations are obviously different between the two teams due to roster size.
“The goal on the women’s side is to lay a foundation and we want to do as much as we can individually. Each girl has their own individual goals and we want them to meet that, but then also lay a foundation for the returners and next year’s recruiting class to have a solid women’s team,” Miller said. “On the men’s side, we want to go in quiet but hungry and let our running speak for itself, and see if we can get in contention and start getting in conversations as a ranked team. We have the team to do it, but they’ve got to go out and prove it. We’re not coming in with preseason ranking because they’re all new kids.”
” It will be a developmental year to set up for next season for the women, meanwhile the men are looking to surprise people and get into the national conversation early on.
Coach Miller shared which of his athletes will lead the way as each team strives to approach it’s respective goals this season, starting with the men.
“Coming in race ready we have two guys specifically, one is Dennis Cheruiyot, he’s our transfer and he’s very talented, his personal records are competitive on the national level. He’s someone that if everything goes well and he races well, he could be an All-American and maybe even get in the mix for an individual national title. He’s been training well and I’m excited to see him run,” Miller said. “Right behind him, we’ve got two freshmen from France, Yanis Morissey and Ylies Mihoubi, that are very talented as well. They’re definitely lower in mileage in their training history, but they’re on track to develop to be maybe as good as he is.”
Cheruiyot placed third last season in the Lone Star Conference as a freshman at West Texas A&M, running 23:55.7 in the 8K, and he also finished in the top three of multiple distance runs in indoor and outdoor track and field.
The two Frenchmen will have to adapt to the higher mileage output and collegiate competition, but Coach Miller’s expressions alluded to his confidence in them to step up and help Cheruiyot lead this team to national contention.
The layout of the girls team is similar with their top athletes, but they just lack team depth.
“Our one sophomore girl, Allison Guaman Tisalema, her personal records put her in line to contend with some of the top runners nationally. She dealt with injuries last season, we’re a lot more healthy this fall than we were coming out of the spring, so I’m excited to see what she can do,” Miller said. “We have a couple freshmen that I think will do very well, Jennifer Lozano and Icela Swaby. One of them specialized more in the 800, 1600 in high school, and then the other ran steeplechase in high school. I’m excited what to see what they’ll do in the 5k.”
Last year, Guaman Tisalema finished 33rd in the NJCAA D1 Cross Country Championships with a time of 18:31, as well as 7th in the 3,000-meter steeplechase in the outdoor track and field championships.
If that’s an injured season, then she’s likely going to achieve greatness when fully healthy this season.
The freshmen pair of Lozano and Swaby will try to help her out with carrying the weight of the team’s overall finishes, but they’ll have to adapt to the challenge of longer distances.
Both teams will need people step up and grow into their roles as they try to meet their goals this season.
Starting this weekend, the Texans and Lady Texans have four guranteed meets and if they can they can perform, they can earn a fifth and run at nationals in November.
Best of luck to SPC Cross Country this season, they’ll be running with the support of the Levelland community behind them.
If you want to support them in person or keep up with the team, the 2025 season schedule is provided below.