Behind individual wins from Utah Valley seniors Tyson Lambert and McKayla Walker, the UVU men's and women's cross-country teams swept the team victories Saturday at the UNLV Invitational on the Craig Ranch Regional Park course.
"Our individuals all ran well," said Utah Valley head coach Scott Houle. "They're doing a great job of learning how to run as a group. Our goal is to have seven out of the top-10 individual finishers in races to close the gap with our scores and I think we're starting to get there on both sides."
Lambert continued his string of perfect races to start the season with a victory for the third-straight meet, running a time of 18:16 to lead the Wolverines to a perfect score in the men's 6K race. Utah Valley scored a perfect 15 points with the top-five scorers among Division I men competitors.
"It feels awesome. I haven't won too many cross-country races in my career, so it's exciting to win a bunch in a row," said Lambert. "I think we're definitely heading in the right direction as a team. We're getting stronger and gaining confidence, and our races have been good so hopefully we can keep this up."
In the women's 5K, Walker picked up a win for the second meet in a row after finishing with a time 17:32. Walker paced a 1-2 finish for the Wolverines and guided a pack of seven UVU runners to place inside the top 10 on the day. The Wolverine women finished with a near-perfect 18 points in their team win sparked by four of the top-five individual finishers.
"It felt really good," said Walker. "Coach Houle wanted to have us all run in the top pack today and we were able to do that. Our girls are incredible and today it showed. They are all hard workers and motivate me as a runner to train harder so I can keep up with them."
Adding to UVU's individual 1-2 finishes in the men's and women's races, senior Savannah Berry placed second with a time of 17:40 and sophomore Kevin Lynch's second-place finish came behind a time of 18:33. The pair of Wolverines finished just outside the top spots, as Berry crossed the finish line only eight seconds behind Walker and Lynch was within 17 seconds of Lambert.
"Tyson and McKayla winning wasn't much of a surprise to us. But Kevin had a great effort in the men's race and Savannah could've pulled out a win for us in the women's race. We can't control what other teams or individuals do, but we can control what we do and I think we did a great job of that," Houle said.
Utah Valley's perfect scoring effort was rounded out by freshman Geofrey Kemboi in third place (18:50), sophomore Adrian Jones (19:00) in fourth and senior Logan Petty in fifth place (19:07). On the women's side, the Wolverine freshmen trio of Hannah Branch (17:53), Miah Weaver (17:57) and Sammy Hollingsworth (18:00) concluded UVU's scoring in fourth through sixth place, respectively.
Also landing inside the top 10 on the day for UVU were freshmen duo Lamek Keditukei (eighth, 19:24) and Anthony Ocegueda (10th, 19:33) in the men's race, as well as Shevaun Ames (seventh, 18:01) and Paityn Chynoweth (ninth, 18:07) in the women's race.
The Wolverines now enjoy a week off from competition before returning to the turf in Cedar City, Utah, at the Color Country Invite hosted by Southern Utah on Oct. 7.