Dec. 8, 2005

LAS VEGAS - Wagner's Power Painters pulled away Wednesday in the Rebel Challenge, winning two events and finishing second in another to grab a 16-point lead with two days left in the strength and conditioning competition.

Jabe Beard moved from third place to the lead in the individual portion of the competition with 197 points, 11 points ahead of Braden Walker who has 186.

Wednesday's challenge events concluded with Wagner's Power Painters extending what appears to be a commanding team lead in the overall challenge. The Power Painters, winners of six of 10 events, have yet to finish below third in any one event. Their consistency looks to be a reflection of work ethic and drive against the event itself rather than the other teams. They won the two mile race and tug-of-war and finished second to the You Know Who's, captained by Mike Cruz, in the obstacle course.

Some shake-up occurred in the individual competition as Ryan Tabor ran away in the two mile run, while Matt Luca claimed the obstacle crown. Despite still recovering from summer surgery, Luca has claimed either first or second place in all events in which he is cleared for full participation. A healthy Luca might really have shaken up the leaderboard. Nevertheless, he finds himself in 11th place with just a combined four points in three of the events.

"I am extremely pleased with the challenge thus far. I must admit there have been some pleasant surprises in performance from some of the guys," UNLV head coach Buddy Gouldsmith said. "I believe a lot can be told from an individual's competative spirit in areas outside of baseball. There is still a lot of Challenge left and it will be interesting to see whether some teams can close the gap and give themselves a chance to win.

Thursday's events begin at 3:00 p.m. (PST) and will include the team stair challenge, farmer's walk team relay and the Gator load and push. The final day of the competition is Friday.

Below is the list of events with corresponding team winners as well as individual event winners.

TEAM             TOTAL POINTSWagner's Power Painters         53Cruz's You Know Who's                37Bird's Bombers                      34Brock's Team BALCO                   27Luca's Riddlers                     26Lang's Shockers                     24

INDIVIDUAL           TOTAL POINTSJabe Beard                  197Braden Walker                      186Willie Bowman              184.5Efren Navarro               169.5Matt Wagner                  160