Kaumba Breaks Course Record

Oklahoma Baptist University's Miriam Kaumba broke her own course record and won the OBU Cross Country Invitational going away Saturday in 16:49. The record was 17:11 on the 5,000 meter course at Gordon Cooper Technology Center.

Kaumba, who had her best time last week at 16:30 in Joplin, out-distanced Dallas Baptist's Katie Simpson by more than two minutes. Kaumba's effort led the sixth-ranked Lady Bison to a first place finish.

No. 24 Oklahoma Christian captured the men's race for the first time in recent memory and Wayland Baptist, fueled by two Kenyan runners, held off 14th-ranked OBU by a point for second place.

"There's going to be a lot of drama at the regional," said OBU coach Ford Mastin after Saturday's tight race. "Michael Elizondo still isn't well and Landon Willets didn't have a good race by his standards. When you take that into consideration, I'm pretty pleased with the men."

The men's standings had Oklahoma Christian winning with 46 points, followed by Wayland Baptist at 54, OBU at 55, Northwood at 69 and Southern Nazarene at 121. Northwestern Oklahoma State, Southwestern Christian, St. Gregory's and Dallas Baptist had no score.

Wayland Baptist had two of the top three finishers in Kenyans Vincent Tanui and Nimrod Kipton.

OBU was led by Daniel Ellis in fourth place at 25:45, followed by Theron Stolzfus in sixth (25:53), Willets in 14th (27:18) David Matushak in 19th (27:48) and Nathan Battershell rounding out the scoring in 20th (28:10). Also for OBU, Cole Tunnell was 25th and Elizondo was 29th.

While Kaumba won the women's race easily, the competition after that was stiff.

"It was very competitive," Mastin said. "We trained hard this week to get ready for the meet in Stillwater, so we're a little tired."

Still, the OBU women won with 38 points, followed by SNU with 16, Oklahoma Christian with 89, Northwood with 98, Central Oklahoma with 102, Dallas Baptist with 114 and Langston with 198. Wayland Baptist, Southwestern Oklahoma, Northwestern Oklahoma and St. Gregory's did not have team scores.

OBU's Katie Engstrom finished fifth in 19:19.01, followed by Becka Brock in ninth (19:22), Kyta Ferrer in 12th (19:47) and Katy Rader finishing the scoring group in 18th (20:08). Also for the OBU women, Chandra Huckabay was 23rd, Sarah Hale was 28th, Kendra Ray was 31st, Lauren Vaughan was 43rd and Charissa Skuza was 47th.