Image
OC Athletics
Eagle

OC runners place high at MSSU Stampede

JOPLIN, Mo. (Sept. 19, 2009) – The men’s and women’s cross country teams saw great success at the MSSU Stampede on Saturday. The men finished eighth out of 35 teams behind a fourth place individual finish by Silas Kisorio. The women placed 15th out of 41 teams.

Nicole Lair led the women’s team covering the five-kilometer distance in 18:56 bettering her previous race’s time by 22 seconds. Lair placed 48th out of the 359 runners in the field.

Junior Melyssa Cardenas also placed in the top 100 runners. Cardenas came in 96th place with a time of 19:51. Close behind for the Lady Eagles was Irene Masai who finished 101st with a 19:59. Kaili Tucker came in fourth for OC with a 121st place finish in a time of 20:11.  Rachel Snider rounded out the Lady Eagles’ scorers with a 20:31 and 150th place finish.

To finish out the Lady Eagles were Lena Baskin (21:18) in 224th, Cady Block (21:29) in 231st place and Kaci Shough (22:18) in 279th place. “I was proud of the intensity our women ran with today. With 7 weeks until conference, we still have a lot of hard work left, but today was a step in the right direction,” stated head coach Mark Thompson.

The men’s team finished strong in the 359-runner field. Silas Kisorio led the Eagles with a fourth place finish at a blistering 23:43. Second for the Eagles was Geoffrey Njonjo who clocked a 25:00 to finish 33rd. Finishing one behind the other for the Eagles were Brayden Barrientez (25:44.4) in 72nd and David McWilliams (25:44.6) in 73rd place. Britt Barrientez was the fifth finisher for the Eagles in 26:26 to place 131st.

Rounding out the top seven for the Eagles were Joseph Zarazua (27:14) in 192nd with Ethan Pollock (27:19) not far behind in 198th place. “We beat who we needed to beat today and we had five guys really step up,” said Thompson. “Silas ran a beautiful race and the three runners that beat him are great runners. On top of that, Britt Barrientez ran the race of the day with over a minute and half personal best to be a strong fifth man for us.”

The Eagles placed eighth with 244 points ahead of NAIA ranked schools in a race including NCAA division I and II schools.

The Oklahoma Christian cross country teams return to race at the Oklahoma State Cowboy Jamboree on Oct. 3.

-OC-