LUBBOCK, Texas (Feb. 21, 2021) – Owen Pearce posted a runner-up finish in the 3,000 meters and five other Oklahoma Christian athletes scored team points on Sunday on the final day of the Lone Star Conference Indoor Track and Field Championships at the Texas Tech Sports Performance Center.

Pearce, a sophomore from Kingman, Kan., moved into second place in the 19-man field in the 3,000 and held that position for the remainder of the race, finishing in a career-best time of 8:30.38. He finished only a second behind the winner, Ezekiel Kipchirchir of West Texas A&M and was more than nine seconds clear of the third-place runner while posting OC's highest individual finish of the two-day meet.

Also in the 3,000, another OC sophomore, Colten Brown of Boise City, Okla., earned one team point by finishing eighth in 8:54.88.

Three Eagles finished fourth in their respective individual events. Freshman Alex Samples of Edmond, Okla., did so in the triple jump with a career-best mark of 45 feet, 9 inches (13.94 meters). In the 800 meters, sophomore Dylan Burrows of Melbourne, Australia, had a time of 1:53.29 to do the same.

Junior Jelte van Atten of Leiden, Netherlands, led three OC runners in the top 10 in the mile, taking fourth in a career-best time of 4:19.44. Senior Colton Meyers of Allen, Texas, also had a career-best time while finishing ninth in 4:31.26, while sophomore Austin McNair of Denton, Texas, was 10th in 4:33.06.

Freshman Chaney Martin of West Plains, Mo., became the first OC male competitor in recent memory to complete an indoor heptathlon and finished sixth in the seven-event discipline with 4,563 points. On Sunday, he was sixth among 11 competitors in the 60-meter hurdles (8.97 seconds) to earn 752 points, third in the pole vault (13 feet, 9¼ inches/4.20 meters) to earn 673 points and fourth in the 1,000 meters (2:58.93) to earn 675 points.

OC finished fifth in the nine-team LSC field with 46.5 team points, well clear of sixth-place Dallas Baptist (Texas) with 27 and also ahead of Texas-Tyler with 23, Lubbock Christian (Texas) with 18 and Cameron with 17. West Texas A&M won the meet with 198 points, with Texas A&M-Commerce second with 118, Texas A&M-Kingsville third with 109.5 and Angelo State (Texas) fourth with 100.

Burrows (in the 800 meters) and OC's distance medley relay squad of van Atten, Burrows, Camden Miller and Pearce now will wait and see if they've qualified for the upcoming NCAA Division II Indoor Championships, while the rest of the Eagles will begin preparing for the outdoor season. OC's outdoor schedule will be announced in the coming weeks.