SAN ANGELO, Texas (Oct. 30, 2020) – This summer, a sizable group of Oklahoma Christian men's cross country runners spent considerable time in Colorado, training in the high altitude, forming strong team bonds and preparing themselves for the next two weeks.
It's a truth of cross country that the amount of success a team experiences in the postseason often is proportional to the work put in by its runners during the preseason. Because of that, coach
Wade Miller is quietly confident in his Eagles as the Lone Star Conference Championship race approaches on Saturday.
The 8,000-meter race will start at 9:30 a.m. and due to league policy concerning the COVID-19 pandemic, no fans will be allowed on the Angelo State (Texas) course. The race will be streamed on the LSC Digital Network both online (
www.lonestarconferencenetwork.com) and via OTT apps on Apple TV, Amazon Fire TV and Roku devices free of charge. After the race, the awards presentation will be streamed at about 11:30 a.m.
"We've got a group that's interchangeable who can move around, depending on who has a good day," Miller said. "We talked about being ready for conference and approached the summer with the hope that we were going to have a season. The team did a great job of training despite the uncertainty and so now it's exciting to kind of be in a position to capitalize on that hard work.
"The summer training for us this year was really consistent. … At this level, that's a pretty cool piece of being able to reach your potential, is putting in the work over the summer. They were really diligent and now we're looking forward to starting the process of capitalizing on those gains."
Coming off a fourth-place LSC finish in 2019 and with most of their key contributors back, the Eagles and Miller knew this season should be a strong one – if they would be allowed to run. Not knowing yet if that would happen, OC runners began gathering in Colorado to put in the hard work to form a base of conditioning.
One of the Eagles' core group – sophomore
Ethan Anthony – wasn't able to make it back to Oklahoma from his native Australia because of the pandemic (although he does plan to return as soon he can). But the rest of OC's runners received good news in August, when the LSC announced its member schools would be allowed to compete in cross country this fall, albeit with a reduced schedule.
The Eagles have competed in only three meets so far and fielded a full team in two of them, both races at Oklahoma State against NCAA Division I competition, including a handful of top-shelf squads. OC beat Oklahoma in both those meets and Texas State in another.
As Miller noted, OC's strength is in a pack of runners that usually run close together, meaning there are few (if any) large gaps in time, which is key in cross country, in which every place counts for a point and the lowest team score wins. Included in that pack are seniors
Caleb Bozarth of Bakersfield, Calif., and
Colton Meyers of Allen, Texas; junior
Jelte van Atten of Leiden, Netherlands; and sophomores
Colten Brown of Boise City, Okla., and
Owen Pearce of Kingman, Kan.
Meyers, who was 13th in last year's LSC race in Silver City, N.M., is one of six returning All-LSC runners this season. Bozarth is a former All-Heartland Conference runner, earning that honor when the Eagles competed in that league.
"We've had some hiccups here and there and we've had to work through some issues, but everybody has this year," Miller said. "Right now, they're looking strong. It's a really good group that's training together and I think can race together. We should have a pretty strong pack."
Other OC runners competing Saturday will include senior
Brady Aderholt of Vernon, Texas; junior
Nick Parizek of Oklahoma City; sophomores
Kolten Johnson of Lewisburg, Tenn.,
Austin McNair of Denton, Texas; and
Dylan Burrows of Melbourne, Australia.
The Eagles figure to be in a group of teams competing for a top-four finish in the 14-team field. Miller said he considers West Texas A&M – which is seeking its eighth straight league title – the favorite, with Texas-Tyler, Dallas Baptist (Texas), Texas A&M-Commerce, OC, Texas A&M International, Western New Mexico and Cameron in the mix.
In a national coaches' poll – which is taking the place this fall of one usually produced by the U.S. Track and Field and Cross Country Coaches' Association – Texas-Tyler (in its final season of transition from Division III into Division II) tops the league rankings, followed by Western New Mexico, West Texas A&M, Dallas Baptist, TAMUC and OC.
With the NCAA having already cancelled the Division II regional and national championship races, what's being billed as the "Division II XC National Invitational" will be held in Lubbock, Texas, on Nov. 14. The top teams from each of the eight Division II leagues competing in cross country this fall – including the LSC – will receive invitations. Miller believes the Eagles certainly are capable of qualifying.
"These last four weeks of our season are what our focus has been," Miller said. "When we were starting our training block in June, we wanted to be prepared for the championship season – be ready for our conference meet and be ready for any postseason opportunities."
