OKLAHOMA CITY – The MACU cross country teams will be competing in their second meet of the inaugural 2023 season as the Evangels will be competing at the Oklahoma State Cowboy Jamboree being run at the Greiner Family OSU Cross Country Course in Stillwater, Oklahoma on Saturday morning.
The MACU women's team will open the multi-race meet with a 6000-meter jaunt starting at 8:15 a.m. before the men will compete in an 8000-meter event with an 8:45 p.m. start time.
The MACU men's team officially opened their season at the J.K. Gold Classic hosted by Wichita State on Sept. 5 as the Evangels as a squad placed seventh in the 6000-meter meet.
Leading the pack for the Evangels was freshman Mason Baker, who turned in a time of 20:41.49 to place 45th and net MACU 33 points. Jackson White scored 40 points with a time 21:32.52 to place 56th while Mason's brother Ryland Baker scored the third-best finish for MACU with a time 21:54.16 for 64th place and 43 points.
Since the program restarted following the conclusion of the 2010 season, the Evangels will be running in their first 8k race since Sooner Athletic Conference Championships on Nov. 6, 2010, which were hosted by Oklahoma Baptist University in Shawnee, Oklahoma. In that race, MACU was led by Abraham Busienei, who turned in a time of 28:09.00 for a 48th-place finish.
It will be the second time MACU has run in the Cowboy Jamboree after competing in the 8k meet on Sept. 25, 2010. Once again, Busienei turned in the Evangels' best time after crossing the finish line in 29:10.87.
Busienei currently holds MACU's 8000-meter race record time of 26:39.00 set at the Missouri Southern Stampede on Sept. 19, 2009.
Gracie Sanders and Ivy Moffat will get to see their first action of the season as MACU will be competing in its first 6k event in program history.
On the women's side, the 5k record in the MACU books is held by multi-sport standout Melissa Aguilar. The 2010s Team of the Decade honoree for MACU women's basketball turned in a time of 20:26.00 at the 2010 SAC Championships, which is to this day the only sub-21-minute time ever recorded by a MACU women's cross country runner.
Moffat and Sanders will be just the second and third MACU women's cross country runners to ever compete at the OSU Cowboy Jamboree, joining Crystalann Handran who ran a 5k time of 26:35.43 in the 2010 event.
