FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. – The
Oklahoma Baptist men's cross country team shocked the Arkansas crowd during its Men's Prairie Fire Pepper 8k run at the Chile Pepper Festival on Friday.
Thanks to the stand-out efforts of junior
Maxamillian Wheeler, the Bison secured a 3rd-place finish. OBU had five finishers in the top 50 (2-25-26-30-50), running an average time of 26:35.3 to notch 133 points.
The Bison raced against some tough competition including Rogers State, Oral Roberts, Northwest Arkansas CC and Texas A&M Texarkana, whose top runner, Vincent Nchogu, garnered the Red River Athletic Conference Men's Runner of the Week award Sept. 5-11 and ended up winning the 8K race on Friday (24:53.3).
For Wheeler, he finished top for the Bison with a career-best time of 25:06.4 at a 5:02 per kilometer pace. Though he was placed 47th at the one-mile split, he was able to close a phenomenal gap and finish second overall.
Following Wheeler was sophomore Carson Kardokus (26:19.7, 25th) and senior
Parker Ables (26:22.7, 26th). Then came sophomore
Samuel Fantoni (26:25.8, 30
th) and freshman James Williams (26:51.8, 50th).
Next on the schedule for the Bison is a home race at the OBU Invitational, Oct. 15 at the Gordon Cooper Technology Center.
