WINFIELD, Kan. -- Methuselah Lagat and Loic Soria took first and second in the 1500 meter race to pace the Cameron runners at the Southwestern Invitational on Thursday.

Race Results

With four runners competing at the invite Cameron raced in mild temperatures but they had to battle a 15-20 mph wind that would slow race times down.

Lagat led the field of 47 runners to win his event with a time of 4:04.64 beating his teammate, Soria who finished just a half second behind (4:05.05).  

"For the windy conditions I knew the race was not going to be that quick time-wise so I told them to not worry about the clock and race to win," said head coach Casey Kreger.   "Their execution went well and we got first and second."

In the 5000 meter both Thomas Toth and Lagat finished next to each other with Toth taking fourth and Lagat placing fifth. 

Toth's time of 15:03 was a personal best and placed him third all-time at Cameron in the 5000 meter, Lagat finished the race at 15:18 which was sixth best in program history.

"Overall was very happy for this race," added Kreger.  "Thomas (Toth) went with the leaders hung on till about one mile to go and just fell off pace with them but he ran a very aggressive and very tough race. Our goal was to break 15 minute and see how close we could get to 14:50 but we fell short towards the end but we were very pleased."

"Methuselah (Lagat) just went into the race seeing how his body felt and we did not really have a goal just to go out there and see how he feels after the 1500 meter earlier that day. He ran really smart and closed the last mile very quickly."

Steve Orwell took fifth in the 10000 meter with a time of 34:29.26, finishing two minutes back of the top finisher.

Cameron will race next on March 26-27 at the University of Texas Relays in Austin.