Florida State Invitational Belongs to Master's Men's Cross Country

With some of the best competition the Master's men's cross country team has faced, it was victory at the Florida State Invitational 8K in Tallahassee, Fla. Friday.

The Mustangs, ranked No. 4 in this week's NAIA Top 25 poll, had two runners finish in the top five and four total in the top 20 out of 306 athletes for a team score of 74. The host Florida State Seminoles finished second with 87 points.

In addition to finishing ahead of NCAA Division 1 teams such as Florida State, LSU and the University of Miami, The Mustangs also finished ahead of NAIA No. 2 Indiana Wesleyan, which means Master's should move up in the next national poll. A total of 30 teams competed in the race.

"Our prayer on this trip was that the Lord would be seen and we would not," said Head Coach Zach Schroeder. "As John says in John 3:30, "He must increase and I must decrease." The Lord has given us a platform and our prayer is that as others look at us we can point to Christ and say "not us but him".

Brint Laubach continued his amazing season by placing second in the race with a time of 24:25.6, less than two seconds off the lead. Davis Boggess finished fifth at 24:31.9.

"Today was an amazing opportunity to worship the Lord through our efforts," Laubach said after the race. "I am so grateful to have been able to run with such an amazing team and am excited for what's to come! I pray that we can honor the Lord whether we have victory or defeat and recognize that it is Him that determines who represents Him on the podium and also who will display His character in defeat."

Connor Ybarra finished 15th (24:47.2), Anthony Ghiroso 20th (24:57.1) and Daniel Rush 33rd (25:10.6) to complete Master's scoring.

"Our goal on this team is to use the podium to preach the Gospel," Boggess said. "This race was a gift from the Lord and we want to give all glory to Him. I shared this thought with the boys before the start: "The LORD lifts up the humble; he casts the wicked to the ground….His delight is not in the strength of the horse, nor His pleasure in the legs of a man, but the LORD takes pleasure in those who fear Him, in those who hope in His steadfast love" (Psalm 147:6,10-11). The end is not FSU. We will continue to work hard for nationals for His glory."

This was a split squad that traveled to Florida with a second team competing Saturday at the Pomona-Pitzer XC Invitational in Pomona, Calif.