The Omnibus

Issue date: 10/5/07 Section: Sports

Sophomore Mallory Roth helps lead the women's cross country team. The Lady Bearcats are now ranked 19th in the nation and third in the region. [Click to enlarge]

It was another week and another runner stepping up for the Southwest Baptist men's cross country team. In their first meet of the year, sophomore Shawn Etzenhouser rose to the occasion and finished as the second runner for SBU behind junior Michael Pierce. At the Missouri Southern Stampede, it was sophomore Cameron Ayers finishing behind Pierce. This past week at the Oklahoma State Jamboree, it was sophomore Michael McCampbell who took the big step and finished as the second runner for the Bearcats.
With McCampbell turning in a strong performance behind the consistent and strong Pierce, SBU was able to knock off conference rival and nationally-ranked Missouri Southern State University.
A new running style could have been part of the reason the Bearcats were able to finish seventh out of 17 teams in a very competitive field that included numerous Division I teams and the top team in Division II. The new strategy tried by SBU entailed all five top runners staying together as a pack until about halfway through the race.
At the halfway point, Pierce made his push for the finish while the other four attempted to stay together. With the five runners feeding off of each other, it was no surprise that those were the top five finishers for SBU.
Behind Pierce (34th, 25 minutes, 52 seconds) and McCampbell (41st, 26:11) was Etzenhouser (50th, 26:27), sophomore Jeremy Glassmaker (26:33, 53rd) and Ayers (60th, 26:46). The result of the pack-running was that all five of SBU's runners finished within one minute of each other.
Another positive to come out of the meet was the continued improvement of sophomore Josh Rollins. Rollins finished in 27:20 and continues his climb up the Bearcat standings. Rounding out the top seven for Southwest Baptist was junior Vince Tichenor who crossed the finish line in 27:31.
The women's race went much the same way as the men's race for Head Coach Corey McElhaney's club.

Continued...

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