SPARTANBURG, S.C. (Oct. 8, 2025) – If 2023 was Jason Bowers establishing his identity as a star in the cross country world, then 2025 is Bowers establishing his supremacy.

The redshirt junior from Parys, South Africa, was named the SoCon Cross Country Athlete of the Week for a record-tying sixth time on Wednesday as announced by the league office, a day after he rose into the top 20 of FloTrack's national men's cross country rankings at 19th.

After winning the Hokie Invitational on September 19, he returned to action at the Louisville Cross Country Classic and won the event with a 23:23.0 time, 15 seconds ahead of the field on the 8k course for his fourth career race win and second of 2025.

Bowers has won three SoCon weekly awards this season on September 17th and 24th and on Wednesday to go with three awards in the 2023 season on September 20th, October 4th, and October 18th of that year. He is the first SoCon men's cross country athlete to win three weekly awards in two different seasons and ties the overall record of six selections held by Phil Mitchell of Appalachian State who collected six awards from 2006-09.

Bowers and the Bucs return to racing next weekend at the Roanoke Invitational in Salem, Virginia, with the men's 8k set to begin at 10:30am and the women's 5k set for 11:30am.

For more information on ETSU cross country, go to ETSUBucs.com.