SACRAMENTO, CA - The Tigers claimed runner-up at the NAIA Marathon Classic this morning at the California International Marathon.

It was the race within the race this morning out west. The California International Marathon is one of the fastest races in America and now hosts the NAIA Marathon Classic at the same time. The NAIA race begins only seconds after the professional and semi professional field take off. 

Martin Batel was the leader of the day for Campbellsville, placing 7th in the NAIA race with a new school record of 2:29.35. Teammate Jean-Benoit Merte and Batel were together for most of the race until Batel pulled ahead just past the 21-kilometer mark. Merte went on to finish in 12th place with a time of 2:33.38.

Samuel Bennett ran his second marathon of his career this morning. Bennett negative splitted most of the 5K split updates throughout the race. Bennett was able to improve his time from last year with a new personal best of 2:35.29. 

Both Nina Daman and Hailey Shank made their debut at the marathon distance Sunday morning. Daman shattered the school record by 50:33 with a sub-3 hour time of 2:55.11 and placed 4th  in the NAIA race. Shank was able to hit a sub-3:10 on the day with a 9th-place finish time of 3:06.18.

As a team, Campbellsville placed 2nd overall in the NAIA Marathon Classic. The trio will now look ahead to indoor track, where they will meet back up with the team on January 10-11 at the Vanderbilt Commodore Challenge.