BETHANY, Okla. – Oklahoma City University puts a sixth Sooner Athletic Conference men’s cross country championship in its crosshairs 10:30 a.m. Saturday at Eldon Lyon Park. 

Oklahoma City comes off taking the Mid-States Classic on Oct. 22 in Winfield, Kan. The Stars, ranked ninth in the NAIA, finished ahead of Southern Oregon, currently ranked 11th, at the Kansas Veterans Home of Winfield. 

Nine all-SAC runners carried OCU to its fifth SAC title in a row Nov. 6, 2021. The Stars accounted for six of the league’s top eight finishers. Oklahoma City owns seven of the last eight conference championships. 

“The focus for our program this season has been for these next couple of weeks, so our team is excited to get to the start line,” said OCU coach Frezer Legesse, who became SAC coach of the year last year. 

The Stars have snared the past five individual championships and the top two finishers in the last two conference meets. Shimales Abebe, a junior from Los Angeles, has been the SAC runner-up the past two years. Abebe, a two-time SAC runner of the week this year, has collected top-five finishes in all three meets he has run in. He finished third in the NAIA Mid-States Classic and reeled in his first career win in the Oklahoma City Stars Preview on Sept. 3 at Eldon Lyon Park. 

OCU’s Abraham Chelangam, a freshman from Kampala, Uganda, captured the individual title in the Mid-States Classic and a 10th-place finish in the Chile Pepper Festival on Sept. 30 at Agri Park. Chelangam turned in his season-best time of 24 minutes, 3.9 seconds in Fayetteville, Ark., running against a field including Arkansas, ranked 16th in the NCAA, and two top-25 NCAA Division I squads. 

Oklahoma City brought back six all-SAC performers from the previous year’s conference championships. Milan Todorovic, a senior from Belgrade, Serbia, and Joseph Engel, a senior from Oklahoma City, seek their third all-conference nods.  

Dennis Kiptoo from Wayland Baptist looks to be a contender for the individual title. Kiptoo, a senior from Eldoret, Kenya, finished third in the 2021 SAC Championships. He has raked in two SAC runner of the week awards in 2022. 

The title-winning team punches its tickets to the NAIA Championships on Nov. 18 in Tallahassee, Fla. The weather forecast Saturday morning includes sunny skies with temperatures in the 50s and a southwest wind around 10 mph. Rain is expected Friday.