LAWTON, Okla. (Oct. 23, 2021) – Colten Brown and Colton Meyers steadily have established themselves among the elite cross country runners in the Lone Star Conference and the Oklahoma Christian duo showed why on Saturday morning in the LSC Championship race.

Brown finished third in the 119-man field and Meyers fifth to lead the Eagles on a warm, humid morning at the Big Green Soccer Complex. With a score of 174, the Eagles finished seventh among 14 squads in what proved to be a tight race, with only 49 points separating the second- and 10th-place teams.

Brown, a sophomore from Boise City who posted a time of 25:46.98 over 8,000 meters, and Meyers, a senior from Allen, Texas, who finished in 25:50.92, were OC's only All-LSC honorees.

Brown earned the honor for a second straight year after finishing fifth in the 2020 LSC race in San Angelo, Texas. Meyers picked up his fourth All-Conference cross country honor – one from the Heartland Conference and now three from the LSC, steadily improving his finish in the latter from 13th in 2019 to seventh in 2020 and now fifth.

"Colten and Colton really positioned themselves well to lead our team this morning and both executed strong, consistent races," OC coach Wade Miller said. "We are disappointed with our overall team placement and need to be more engaged in heads-up racing moving into regionals in the next few weeks."

Brown and Meyers finished 1-2 on the same course in OC's season opener in September and both held their own against tougher competition in the LSC race. Innocent Murwanashyaka of West Texas A&M won the individual title in 25:16.51, with Erik Flores of Texas-Permian Basin second in 25:38.72, not far ahead of Brown. Ezekiel Kipchirchir of West Texas A&M finished fourth in 25:48.11.

After Meyers, the Eagles' next finisher was junior Jelte van Atten of Leiden, Netherlands, who placed 49th in 27:51.38. Freshman Griffin Chesire of Eldoret, Kenya, finished 56th in 28:10.16 and sophomore Kolten Johnson of Lewisville, Tenn., was OC's final scoring runner, finishing 61st in 28:29.92.

OC's other runners Saturday included freshman Cade Berkey of Hydro (73rd in 28:50.16), sophomore Ethan Anthony of Mornington, Australia (81st in 29:16.14), freshman Christian Fair of Stillwater (101st in 30:47.57) and sophomore Austin McNair of Denton, Texas, who didn't finish.

West Texas A&M, with 42 points, easily won its ninth straight LSC team title. After that, it was close. St. Edward's (Texas) took second with 143 points, just ahead of Dallas Baptist (Texas) with 145. Texas-Tyler (150), Texas A&M International (160) and Texas A&M-Commerce (172) finished just ahead of OC. The Eagles narrowly beat UTPB (184), Western New Mexico (187) and meet host Cameron (192).

Eastern New Mexico, Lubbock Christian (Texas), Arkansas-Fort Smith and Angelo State (Texas) rounded out the order of finish.

The next step of OC's postseason will be the NCAA Division II South Central Region Championship, to be run Nov. 6 on Lubbock Christian's Chaparral Ridge Cross Country Course in Lubbock, Texas.