PORTALES, N.M. – Once again, the No. 6 West Texas A&M Buffaloes dominated on Saturday morning as they secured their 11
th straight Lone Star Conference Championship title after taking the top-six spots in the championships and placing nine Buffs out of the Top-20. The Buffs were led by individual champion
William Amponsah who ran the second fastest LSC Championship time in LSC history.
The Buffs made history with their highest points total at 15, tying for the highest finish in Lone Star Conference history where the only other school to reach that score was Abilene Christian and now, West Texas A&M. The last time 15 points were scored was in 2004 by ACU.
West Texas A&M clinched their 11
th title and second under head coach
Zach Daniel, finishing 64 points ahead of DBU. Oklahoma Chrisitian finished in third with 82 points followed by Western New Mexico (98) and St. Edward's (146) to round out the top five.
Amponsah became the seventh runner in program history to win the individual title as the junior from Agona Swedru, Accra, Ghana ran the 8-kilometer race in 23 minutes, 35.57 seconds, making it the fastest championship 8K time since 2008 and the second fastest Lone Star Conference Championship time dating back to 1996. Amponsah now stands all-time behind Abilene Christian's, Daniel Maina's time of 23:32 set in 2008, only three seconds ahead of Amponsah.
The #6 Buffs took the Top-Six times with
Enrico Oddone as the second Buff to cross the finish line, coming just 33 seconds behind Amponsah with the junior running 24:08.84.
Aziz Mohammed ran 24:30.39 to take third followed by
Harry Louradour in fourth (24:31.85:).
Louis Moreau came in fifth for the Buffs with a time of 24:40.22 and
Adrian Legarreta was the final scorer for WT coming in at 6
th at 24:53.59.
Jay Hall finished in the top-10 with a time of 25:30.93 in tenth place with teammate
Calvin Allen right on his heels at 11
thwith a time of 25:36.36.
Sole freshman runner for the Buffs,
Adrian Solis finished 17
th (25:51.65) and
Prince Mcabelo rounded out for the Buffs in 33
rd (26:30.48).
WT returns to action on Saturday, Nov. 4 at the NCAA Division II South Central Regional Championships in Lubbock, TX.
