LAWTON, Okla. (Oct. 23, 2021) – This week, Oklahoma Christian cross country coach Wade Miller quietly hoped the Eagles' top runner, Kenya Bailey, would post a top-five individual finish and the team would move up in the pecking order in this year's Lone Star Conference Championship race.

Bailey and the Eagles came through on both counts on Saturday at the Big Green Soccer Complex. Bailey recorded her fourth All-Conference finish in as many years, finishing third (ahead of all the runners from the eventual team champion). In the team race, OC placed sixth – a two-spot improvement over 2020 – and had six of its seven runners post career-best times for 6,000 meters.

The Eagles accomplished all that despite battling non-optimal running conditions – warmer-than-usual temperatures for late October (71 degrees at race time), high humidity (73 percent) and wind that increased with intensity as the race wore on.

"Kenya ran a really great race today," Miller said. "She has been racing tough all season and delivered again. As a team, we needed to be a bit more aggressive early on to position ourselves, but we didn't take advantage of that opportunity. We need to work to correct that in the next few weeks before regionals."

Bailey, a junior from Ponca City, won on the same course in OC's season opener in September and established herself among the leaders on Saturday, as her time of 22:11.94 put her behind only two runners from West Texas A&M. Florance Uwajeneza won her second straight LSC individual title in 21:33.75, with Eleonora Curtabbi second in 21:57.83. Bailey outdueled Madison Brown of Dallas Baptist (Texas) in a thrilling sprint over the final meters.

Bailey finished 14th as a freshman in 2018 in the final Heartland Conference Championship race to earn an All-Conference honor, then finished 14th and seventh in her first two LSC meets in 2019 and 2020, respectively.

Even with the top two finishers, West Texas A&M finished second with 38 points, while Dallas Baptist won its second straight team title with 35 points. OC had a team score of 171 points.

After Bailey, senior Rebeca Morales of Riverside, Calif., ran her best race of the season, finishing 34th among 127 women in 24:01.51, a career-best time. Also with a career-best time was junior Emma Davison of Mason City, Iowa, who placed 38th in 24:11.86. In 48th, with another career-best time of 24:43.78, was junior Caroline Schwab of Andover, Kan.

Keeping with the trend of career-best times, junior Payton Duesing of Lantana, Texas, was 58th in 25:10.73. Junior Janaya McIntosh of Ganado, Ariz., finished 96th in 26:46.43 while freshman Jayme Cole of Muskogee was 124th in 30:00.26.

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.