Winfield ? A youth suspected of shoplifting ran smack into a championship track team, which chased him down and put a quick end to his getaway.

The Southwestern College men’s cross-country team has won 22 consecutive championship titles in the Kansas Collegiate Athletic Conference. The team was warming up Monday near a JC Penney store when the youth hurtled around the corner and into the team.

“He was sprinting as hard as he could, and we were all in a bunch,” said team member Nathaniel Wheatley.

The youth told the runners he wasn’t hurt, and ran away. A moment later, someone emerged from the store and told the team the boy was a shoplifter.

At that point, Wheatley said, the team split up and chased after the boy.

“I don’t know why he was running,” said Wheatley, who earned All-American honors during the 2001 cross-country season. “He wasn’t going to be able to outrun us.”

The boy eventually surrendered his backpack to some of the runners. They took it back to the store and let the boy go, only to find out that the stolen goods were the shoes on his feet, which he had swapped for his own shoes.

The contents of the backpack, however, led police to the boy.