By Mason Nesbitt, TMU Sports Information Director

To say this isn’t where The Master’s University men’s cross country team wants to be at the end of September is not to throw shade on the Mustangs.

It is, put simply, to look at the facts in light of what the program has accomplished over the better part of the last decade.

Eight straight Golden State Athletic Conference championships don’t come by accident. They also don’t go unnoticed.

The Mustangs’ conference rivals are coming and TMU knows it better than ever after its annual home meet at Central Park on Saturday.

Master’s finished seventh collectively, 45 points behind conference foe Westmont.

The Mustangs beat Westmont by one point at last year’s conference championship in Rocklin, Calif. And Wes Methum – TMU’s first finisher Saturday, coming in 13th – knows his team will have to perform better if the result is to be repeated in early November when the teams return to Central Park.

“The focus was definitely to beat Westmont today,” Methum said, “and they beat us. I feel like we’ll take the next weeks of practice very seriously. It’s no joke anymore. They beat us by a pretty good amount. If we want to take this ninth straight conference win, we’re going to have to be much more serious out there during practice.”

Said head coach Zach Schroeder, “It’s a huge wake-up call. … If this isn’t a wake-up call, then we’re in trouble.”

Methum finished in 25 minutes, 35.2 seconds. Stephen Pacheco was next for the Mustangs, coming in 26th with a time of 25:55.0.

Master’s will now have three weeks off of racing before it heads to the Warrior Invitational in Rocklin. Then comes conference.

“It’s going to be a tactical, hard race at conference, and Westmont isn’t going to roll over,” Schroeder said. “It’s going to be a dogfight.”

Saturday proved that.