PROVO — The championship portion of the season begins Saturday for BYU's cross country teams as they travel to Salt Lake City for the Mountain West Conference Championships.
The Cougars are coming off a mixed performance at the Pre-National meet two weeks ago, in which Kassi Andersen placed third to lead the women to a fourth-place finish in their race. The men, running without team leader Josh Rohatinsky, placed ninth behind the performance of Chandler Goodwin, who finished 21st.
Despite finishing lower than they had hoped in that meet, both teams enter the MWC meet as clear favorites to capture BYU's third straight sweep at the meet.
The MWC meet will be held at the Rose Park Golf Course, beginning at 10 a.m.
TENNIS: The men's and women's tennis teams made some noise at regional tournaments last week; the women taking first in their tournament and the men taking a close second in theirs.
The women ran away in their regional tournament in Salt Lake City, compiling a 28-10 record in singles play through the four days of competition, while the doubles teams went 15-3.
The men, led by a strong performance from the doubles team of James Ludlow and Dominik Kaufhold, who narrowly lost in the finals, missed out on a first-place team finish in Las Vegas by just a few points.
With their performances at these unofficial regional tournaments, both teams qualified for a spot in sanctioned four-team regional tournaments in January. The winners of those tournaments will earn a spot in the ITA National Indoor Tournaments in February.
RUGBY: The men's rugby team will wrap up its fall season this Saturday at UVSC.
BYU (3-1) is coming off a 28-19 loss to the University of Utah two weeks ago in Murray. The Cougars had defeated the Utes 13-5 in the first game of the season and held a 14-0 halftime lead in the second game but were overwhelmed by a furious Ute comeback in the second half.
BYU handily defeated UVSC 65-3 when the two teams met two weeks ago.
Saturday's match will be played at Steeler Field in Provo at 1 p.m.
POLL WATCH: The women's soccer team continued its slide down the polls this week after being surprised by the New Mexico Lobos on Saturday night and settling for a 1-1 tie.
The Cougars (12-2-3, 3-1-2 Mountain West) dropped four spots in the Soccerbuzz.com poll to No. 21. It was the fourth straight week BYU moved down in the rankings, after starting the month of Oct. at No. 11.
Voters in the NSCAA/adidas poll, however, were apparently more impressed by BYU's 3-0 shutout of Wyoming last week than by its tie with the Lobos and moved the Cougars up two spots to No. 23 in this week's poll.
The women's volleyball team, meanwhile, moved up one spot in the CSTV/AVCA coaches" poll to No. 17. The Cougars swept UNLV and San Diego State in home matches last week.
E-mail: jtwitchell@desnews.com