LUBBOCK, Texas (Feb. 20, 2021) – Oklahoma Christian's distance medley relay team placed second and four other Eagles earned team points on Saturday on the opening day of the Lone Star Conference Indoor Track and Field Championships at the Texas Tech Sports Performance Center.
OC's DMR squad of
Jelte van Atten,
Camden Miller,
Dylan Burrows and
Owen Pearce entered the meet ranked second in the LSC and that's where they finished, behind West Texas A&M but well ahead of everyone else with a time of 10:29.69. The quartet now will wait to see if they make the cut for the upcoming NCAA Division II Championships in Birmingham, Ala.
Alex Samples, a freshman from Edmond, Okla., was the Eagles' highest individual scorer on Saturday, finishing fourth in the high jump with a career-best mark of 6 feet, 5 inches (1.96 meters). That earned his team five points, and his teammate, freshman
Oscar Littlechief of Edmond, earned 1.5 more by tying for seventh with a jump of 6 feet, 3¼ inches (1.91 meters).
Another freshman,
Chaney Martin of West Plains, Mo., took sixth in the pole vault with a mark of 14 feet, 3¼ inches (4.35 meters). Martin also is competing in the seven-discipline heptathlon in the meet and through four events (60 meters, long jump, shot put and high jump), he stood ninth with 2,463 points. The event will finish Sunday with the 60-meter hurdles, pole vault and 1,000 meters.
OC had two scorers in the 5,000 meters, with sophomore
Colten Brown of Boise City, Okla., seventh in 15:37.49 and senior
Colton Meyers of Allen, Texas, eighth in 15:41.11.
Burrows, a sophomore from Melbourne, Australia, finished seventh in the preliminary round of the 800 meters to advance to Sunday's event final. Two OC sprinters just missed advancing, with each placing ninth – senior
Joseph Owens of Mobile, Ala., in the 60 meters (6.96 seconds) and junior
Verrell McBride of Norman, Okla., in the 200 meters (21.90 seconds).
With six of 19 events completed, OC had 19.5 team points, good for fifth place in the nine-team meet. West Texas A&M led the field with 60 points, followed by Texas A&M-Commerce with 55, Angelo State (Texas) with 46 and Texas A&M-Kingsville with 25.5.
