Cross Country 10/2/2026 10:00:00 AM Payton Havermann

UTA gears up for Chile Pepper Festival in Arkansas

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. – UT Arlington cross country is set for its second meet of the fall, making the trip up to the 38th Annual Chile Pepper Festival. The Mavericks will run in the McDonnell Memorial men's 8k at 10:25 a.m. Saturday and the women's side will follow immediately after with the Harter's Habanero 5k at 11 a.m.

The festival is hosted by the University of Arkansas at Agri Park in Fayetteville, Arkansas. This will be UTA's second trip to the Chile Pepper Festival in as many years. The men's team finished ninth overall while the women placed sixth in the 2025 Chile Pepper Festival.

UTA is coming off a strong showing in its season opener, the Gerald Richey UTA Invitational. The Mavericks swept the podium on the men's side, taking home the team title, while the women's team finished second, narrowly missing out on a team title of its own.

Mateo Doherty, Angel Sanchez and Toby Eaton finished first, second and third individually in the men's 5k after Dorcas Jepkosgei won the women's 5k by nearly a full minute. Connie Ndiema finished as the runner up in the women's 5k, a race that served as her UTA cross country debut.

LINEUP

Women	Men
Lauren Baur	Toby Eaton
Abigail Perez	Angel Sanchez
Justina Lusby	Mateo Doherty
Sophia Hamdani	Kebede Kerlin
Connie Ndiema	Jameson Stewart
Matro Jepkemboi	Lucas Whitt
Dorcas Jepkosgei	Daniel Armstrong
Emilia Mandl	Leo LeGrand

INSIDE THE LINEUP
Women

Dorcas Jepkosgei set the UTA 5k program record with a time of 16:09.5 at the 2025 Chile Pepper Festival.
Jepkosgei is coming off a win in the 5k at the Gerald Richey UTA Invitational. Her time of 16:21.0 was nearly a full minute better than second place. The sophomore has finished second or first in five cross country events with UTA.
Matro Jepkemboi makes her senior season debut as one of UTA's more accomplished runners. In her first three seasons, Jepkemboi has laid claim to three different program records — Indoor 5,000m (16:13.81), Outdoor 5,000m (16:14.72) and Outdoor 10,000m (34:10.78) and earned seven conference medals.
Jepkemboi finished in the top 10 in four of the six cross country events she competed in over the course of the 2025 season.
Connie Chiptoo Ndiema made her UTA cross country debut at the Gerald Richey, finishing second overall with a time of 17:17.3, 13 seconds ahead of third place.
Lauren Baur was the third UTA runner to cross the finish line at the Gerald Richey. She finished a cross country career-best eighth overall with a personal-best time of 18:06.9.
Abigail Perez clocked a personal-best mark of 18:11.2 at the Gerald Richey 5k, more than a minute better than her time at the 2025 Gerald Richey. She finished 10th overall.
Sophia Hamdani and Justina Lusby finished back-to-back in 16th and 17th respectively at the Gerald Richey. Hamdani recorded a time of 18:28.9 in what was her first collegiate event.
Lusby finished just over a second later at 18:30, a mark 40 seconds better than her previous personal best.
Emilia Mandl is set to debut in what will be her fourth season with UTA. She set a personal-best in the 5k at the 2025 Chile Pepper Festival with a time of 18:09.3

Men

As a team, the Mavericks secured their second Gerald Richey men's title in a row.
Mateo Doherty (1st), Angel Sanchez (2nd) and Toby Eaton (3rd) finished in the top three spots at the Gerald Richey men's 5k. Doherty and Sanchez finished with a time of 14:37.9 — a personal-best mark for each — and Eaton clocked a personal-best 14:40.7 at the event.
Kebede Kerlin ran a personal-best time of 15:15.2 at the Gerald Richey. He finished 11th overall and was the fourth Maverick to cross the finish line.
Jameson Stewart beat his personal best in the 5k by eight seconds after running a 15:23.1 at the Gerald Richey. The sophomore was the fifth Maverick to finish and he placed 14th overall.
Competing in his first collegiate event, Lucas Whitt placed 15th in the 5k at the Gerald Richey. He ran the event in 15:29.3.
Leo LeGrand is entering his second season with the Mavericks. He completed four events during the 2025 cross country season.
While this is set to be Daniel Armstrong's fourth season at UTA, the Chile Pepper will be just the second cross country meet he's competed in as a Maverick, the other being the Arturo Barrios Invitational in 2024.