Cross country is highly regarded as an individual sport. But at the Bob Timmons Invitational at Rim Rock Farm on Saturday, a pair of Kansas University runners showed the team side of things.

As Paul Hefferon and Colby Wissel came running down the homestretch together – without any other runners in sight – Wissel slowed up just a fraction of a second at the finish line to allow Hefferon to claim first place.

“We just kind of looked at each other and I go ‘Paul, do you want to take this in?’ and he goes ‘Yeah, I’ll just take it,'” said Wissel, who was the 2005 Bob Timmons Invitational winner. “But we did what we came out here to do and that was to just run a good hard race together and it was really smooth for both of us.”

But Hefferon said he was not claiming the outright championship of the 8k race.

“I kind of consider us co-winners – one of us had to go across the line first because that’s how this sport goes,” Hefferon said.

The efforts of Hefferon and Wissel, along with Erik Sloan, Patrick McGowan and Tyler Kelly – all of whom finished in the top 10 – helped the Jayhawks win their fourth consecutive Timmons Invitational team title.

Kansas University's Colby Wissel, left, and Paul Hefferon near the finish line of the Bob Timmons Invitational. Hefferon and Wissel finished 1-2 in the collegiate cross country event Saturday at Rim Rock Farm.

“The important part was they came out and competed well as a team today,” KU coach Stanley Redwine said. “And that’s something we definitely have to be excited about.”

The strong finish by KU could be a promising sight, as the Jayhawks will host the Big 12 Conference Championship on Oct. 27 at Rim Rock Farm. Kansas’ two-time defending Big 12 champion, Benson Chesang, will be back on the course after sitting out his third Bob Timmons Invitational after placing second in the race his freshman year.

“We’re going to put a talented team out on this course,” said Hefferon about the conference championship, which will be the first Big 12 championship run at Rim Rock. “And we know it really well and it kind of showed today – that we know how to run this course better than anyone else in the country.”

The women’s race took a new form at the invitational to help prepare the KU women for the conference championship. Instead of running a 5k like in years past, the women’s race was switched to a 6k event.

“We thought, as coaches, that it would be better for us to run a 6k rather than a 5k,” Redwine said. “For some of them, this was their first 6k ever, and they need to get used to running a longer distance.”

Despite being the only Jayhawk to finish in the top 10, Melissa O’Rourke’s sixth-place finish propelled the women’s team to their second straight invite championship. It helped that Haley Harbert, who was the last of Kansas’ top five finishers – which is how points are scored – finished in 19th, with Laura Major (12), Lisa Morrisey (15) and Alicia McGregor (17) coming in just ahead of her.

“It was pretty important for us,” O’Rourke said about being able to finish in first as a team. “Especially for the few seniors that we have left – we wanted to go out strong and not get beat on our home course.”

Faithy Kamangila’s first-place finish – after finishing second in last years race – wasn’t enough for the Oral Roberts team to do any better than a third place finish which was just one point ahead of Kansas State.