‘Super happy with the effort’: BYU men place third in NCAA Cross Country Championships

Led by Casey Clinger’s seventh-place finish, BYU placed third in the NCAA Cross Country Championships Saturday in Stillwater, Oklahoma.

The Cougars had moved into second place late in the race, just three points behind Northern Arizona, but over the final 1,000 meters of the 10,000-meter race they faded.

Northern Arizona won the championship for the sixth time in seven years (BYU broke NAU’s streak by winning the title in 2019). NAU and host-school Oklahoma State actually finished in an 83-83 tie, but NAU was awarded the title based on a tiebreaker. BYU had 132 points.

In the women’s race, BYU finished eighth and Utah 12th. North Carolina State won the team championship for the second consecutive year, led by sophomore superstar Katelyn Tuohy’s win in the individual race.

This marked the fourth time in six years that the BYU men finished on the podium (top four), including their 2019 NCAA championship. For only the second time in BYU history, four individuals earned cross-country All-American honors (top 40) — Clinger (seventh), Brandon Garnica (21st), Davin Thompson (30th) and Creed Thompson (35th). Clinger, a senior from American Fork, earned his fourth All-American award in cross-country, having finished 24th, 13th, eighth and now seventh in this race, respectively.

“I’m feeling really good about our performance,” said Eyestone. “We put ourselves in position to challenge for the win. That’s what you hope for. We just dropped a few places over the last little bit. If they had scored the top seven runners, we probably would’ve won. I’m super happy with the effort.”

The Cougars placed five runners in the top 47 — and all seven of their runners finished in the top 52 of the 254-man race. No other team came close to doing that, but only the top five runners count for team scoring (no other team placed its seventh runner in the top 90). All seven of BYU’s runners graduated from Utah high schools.

The men’s race was won by Stanford’s Charles Hicks, who pulled away from NAU’s Nico Young and Drew Bosley in the final 1K of the race. In chilly 31-degree temperatures, he covered the hilly 10,000-meter course in 28:43.6. Hicks, Young and Bosley made a break early in the race and were never challenged. Clinger and Garnica ran in the chase pack the entire race.

“Casey decided to key off Oklahoma State’s Alex Maier because he had been running well and knows the course,” said Eyestone. “After the race … maybe he should’ve gone with those (lead) guys.”

Tuohy, the most decorated high school cross-country runner ever, actually trailed most of the women’s race. Florida’s Parker Valby made an early break from the field trying to escape Tuohy’s well-known late-race kick. She held a 12-second lead over the chase pack at the 5K mark of the 6,000-meter race, but moments later Tuohy made the break and started to reel in Valby. She caught her on a hill at the 5.4K mark and pulled away, crossing the finish line in 19:27.7, about three seconds ahead of Valby.

Utah’s Emily Venters, a senior from Kansas, finished 12th and teammate Simon Plourde 45th to give the Utes their highest team finish ever — 12th. It marked the fourth time in seven years the Utes finished in the top 20. Their previous best was a 16th-place finish in 2019.

BYU’s eighth-place finish in the women’s competition marked the sixth consecutive year the Cougars have finished in the top 10. They had finished second, first and second in the previous three races, respectively. Aubrey Frentheway finished 32nd in the 254-woman field and teammate Lexy Halladay was 34th.

Utah Valley’s Everlyn Kemboi, a senior from Kenya, was 19th.

Utah State finished 26th in the men’s team competition.

Matthew Norton, BYU Photo