Consistency, personal best from Flowers highlight SSU men's XC efforts at JennaStrong XC Fall Classic

WILMINGTON, Ohio -- A consistent effort by all five runners who participated in Friday evening's JennaStrong Cross Country Fall Classic -- including Jacob Naumovski, Malachi Shugert, Luke Butler, Walker Pannell and Jared Flowers, the latter of whom set a personal best with his time -- allowed the Shawnee State men's cross country program to finish as the top NAIA group at the JennaStrong XC Fall Classic, which was held in Wilmington, Ohio Friday evening.

Naumovski, who led all Shawnee State runners with his 28:58, finished inside the top half of the JennaStrong XC Fall Classic field as the sophomore finished 124th out of the 248 runners that took part in Saturday's race. Shugert finished just three spots and 7.5 seconds back of Naumovski, nabbing a 29:05.5 to finish 127th overall in the race.

Butler, Pannell and Flowers also finished inside the top-150 -- with Butler's 29:38.8 resulting in a 142nd place finish and Pannell and Flowers finishing 146th and 147th, respectively, notching times of 29:52.1 and 29:53.3 in doing so.

With his performance, Flowers notched his second personal standard of the 2024 season -- beating his previous PR of 29:58.8, which was set at the Indiana Wesleyan University Twilight XC Invitational, by 5.5 seconds as a result.

The men's cross country program will be back in action next Saturday when the Bears compete at the NAIA Great Lakes Challenge, which will be held at Riverside Park in Grand Rapids, Mich. Race time for the men's meet is set for 10 a.m.