OKLAHOMA CITY – Oklahoma City University returns to the cross country course boasting of five returning all-conference performers and the track ready with four national qualifiers and a defending individual national champion this weekend.
The Stars, ranked 12th in the preseason NAIA women's cross country, will open their season 1:30 p.m. Friday in the Oklahoma Baptist Invitational in Shawnee, Okla. OCU will begin track & field season in the Friends Mid-Season NAIA Invitational on Friday at Wichita State's Heskett Center.
Returning all-American Sarah Olamide will look to pace the Stars once more in 2020-21. The OBU Invitational takes place at the Gordon Cooper Technology Center, which was the longtime site of the Sooner Athletic Conference cross country championships. OCU has won the past five SAC women's cross country titles.
In the Friends meet, Marquania Rowell will make her first leap since capturing OCU's first individual field national crown. Rowell, a senior from Opelika, Ala., tallied 10 of the Stars' 12 points in the NAIA indoor track & field championships in March.
TOP RETURNERS
• Olamide, a sophomore from Lagos, Nigeria, posted ninth place in the NAIA cross country championships with a time of 18 minutes, 19 seconds in November in Vancouver, Wash. Olamide led Oklahoma City to a 16th-place team showing. Olamide collected the SAC individual championship and U.S. Track & Field Cross Country Coaches Association NAIA South Central Region women's cross country athlete of the year. Olamide carried her success over to track season, competing in the finals in the mile and 3,000 meters in the national indoor meet
• Rowell recorded a mark of 5 feet, 9¾ inches (1.77 meters) to become the high jump national champion in the national meet in Brookings, S.D. Rowell picked up three SAC field athlete of the week nods in 2019-20. Rowell competed with Beyel Tubbs in the national meet on the Stars' 4x400-meter relay team
• Jacinda Kwambai earned all-American status in the NAIA indoor championships in the 5,000 meters. Kwambai, a sophomore from Kapsowar City, Kenya, took seventh in the 5K with her time of 17:41.16
• In the 2019 SAC cross country championships, Kaitlyn Heffernan reeled in third place, while Madison Altom finished 10th. Also returning for the Stars will be all-SAC runners Macey Currie (12th place) and Anna Mitchell (14th)
NEW FACES
• Elizabeth Heffernan, sister to Kaitlyn Heffernan, came to OCU after placing among the top 10 of the Class 6A Arkansas girls cross country championships
• Selena McDonald recorded a school-record mark and became all-conference in high jump during the Great American Conference Championships for Northwestern Oklahoma State. McDonald, a junior from Elgin, Okla., is a member of the OCU women's basketball team as well
PRESEASON BUZZ
• The Stars checked in at 12th in the preseason national poll, accruing 364 points
MEET THE COACH
• Matt Aguero has spent the previous four years as OCU head men's and women's cross country and track & field coach. He has led the Stars to two men's cross country national championships and the 2017 women's indoor national runner-up finish. Aguero started at OCU as assistant coach and aided the Stars to two national crowns in men's cross country
• Aguero has guided Oklahoma City to seven conference cross country titles, three men's crowns and four women's championships. He has been decorated as NAIA men's cross country coach of the year twice, cross country regional coach of the year five times (two men's honors, three women's nods) and SAC coach of the year seven times (three men's awards, four women's accolades)
• Aguero has mentored 38 individual and relay national champions. In 2019-20, Mark Shaw secured his second individual NAIA men's cross country championship in addition to Rowell nabbing the high jump indoor title. Notably, Aguero directed Aminat Olowora, who became a 12-time national champion with two NAIA records
MARK YOUR CALENDAR
• The NAIA indoor track & field championships have been slated for March 3-6 at the Ruth Donohoe First Dakota Fieldhouse on the campus of Mount Marty University in Yankton, S.D.
• The SAC cross country championships are set for March 27 at Woodson Park in Oklahoma City for the third year in a row
• The NAIA cross country championships have been scheduled for April 9 at the Seminole Valley Cross Country Course in Cedar Rapids, Iowa
