Bison Finish Strong at Chili Pepper Festival

Results
 
FAYETTEVILLE, Arkansas – Oklahoma Baptist men's cross country finished 19th in a loaded field of 49 teams at the University of Arkansas Chili Pepper Festival on Saturday morning.
 
"I'm proud of the guys for how they raced today," said OBU head coach Matt Kennedy. "I thought they did a good job executing the race strategy today, and we're closing the gap on conference opponents."
 
The Bison finished in second among Great American Conference schools at the meet with an average time of 26:47 on the 8,000-meter course. Every scoring runner for OBU finished within 28 seconds of each other.
 
Blaine Whitson led the way for OBU, crossing the line in 26:36.9 to finish 103rd in a field of 441 runners. Whitson worked his way up from 123rd at the 5,500-meter split. Noah Eskew was second for the Bison, and also made a jump from the 5.5k mark to the end of the race, moving up from 121st to 105th with a time of 26:37.2.
 
Cameron Mills was third across the line for the Bison in a time of 26:40.0, good for 107th, jumping up 25 places over the final 2,500 meters of the race. Nathan Crowson finished in 124th after clocking in at 26:56.0, climbing all the way from 215th at the 1-mile split. DeAngelo Robles was the final scorer for the Bison, turning in a time of 27:05.0 to finish 133rd.
 
Others running for OBU were: Jarrett Ellis (27:06.7, 137th), Carlos James (29:43.7, 280th) and Caleb Dyer (30:48.0, 380th). Garrett Elmore ran an unofficial 27:34.0; however, his timing chip came off his shoe and his time was not recorded in the official timing.
 
Oklahoma Baptist takes next week off before hosting the Oklahoma Baptist Invitational on Saturday, Oct. 6 in the team's only home action this season.