Women's Cross Country | 10/12/2025 11:48:00 AM
SILOAM SPRINGS, Ark. — Carolina Valenzuela broke the 6k program record by over 30 seconds Saturday morning as the Oklahoma Panhandle State men's and women's cross country teams ran at John Brown University.
The race was run on the same course the Sooner Athletic Conference Championship will be held on Nov. 8, and head coach
Cyrus Hall feels good about what his teams can do to finish the season.
Women's 6k race: Valenzuela placed 20th of 72 finishers in the race, crossing in program-record fashion with a time of 24:01.77. It beat the previous record set in 2012 (Teenie Kent) by 33 seconds.
Shania Chavez also finished in the top 30 with her time of 25:04.
Lillyan Gerow stopped the clock at 26:01, and freshman
Ki'Anna Jones completed her first collegiate race with a time of 26:53.
Men's 8k race: Trevor Youngblood led OPSU with his finish at 27:19, good for 26th out of 83 competitors.
Joshua Samaron placed 42nd with a time of 28:48, and
Bramhan Matschek rounded out the performances by crossing in 32:31.
Coach Hall's Thoughts
On the women: "The plan was let's get out kind of conservative first k, first mile, work the middle loop and then get after it in the last loop. I thought we mostly executed that."
"Carolina led the way for us again today, big PR for her … and she's leaving meat on the bone, she's not quite going to the well like we want her to. Once she does, we'll see some big things happen. Lillyan ran pretty solid. She was hurt last week, so she missed some training time … so she actually ran really well and progressively picked it up as the race went and finished strong. Ki'Anna was her first cross country race of her college career. We really didn't have anything planned for her, just finish this race and whatever happens, happens. She actually ran really well, she's only about a minute behind Lillyan, which is pretty solid for an 800-meter track girl."
On the men: "They let the excitement of the race get the best of them and they got out too hard, and we kind of paid for it a little bit," Hall said, noting that the men started the race too fast and estimating that it cost each runner 30 or 40 seconds in their final time.
"We're in good shape, we're fit, they're crushing workouts, so they're in shape enough to run PRs, but they've got to race better. We'll keep working on it."
What's up next: Panhandle State continues its training in preparation for the NAIA Blazing Tiger Classic held in Ashland, Nebraska, on Oct. 25, where many top teams from around the nation are set to compete.
