BYU ladies’s runner compete within the 2022 NCAA cross-country championships in Stillwater, Oklahoma. The Cougars completed eighth. BYU Picture
BYU ladies’s cross-country coach Diljeet Taylor, heart, poses with members of the BYU ladies’s crew in Stillwater, Oklahoma, on the NCAA champsionships. BYU Picture
Editor’s observe: Fourth in a collection of articles inspecting how every BYU program will stack up in opposition to its new convention foes. Right now’s program: ladies’s cross-country.
BYU ladies’s cross-country is the most profitable program in Cougars athletics based mostly on the last word metric: nationwide titles. This system has 5, together with the latest championship gained by a BYU crew (2020) and the best dynasty in division historical past: a run of titles in 1997, 1999, 2001 and 2002. In all, BYU has completed within the prime 10 at nationals 24 occasions, together with every of the final 5 seasons.
This system has been in wonderful palms just lately beneath two-time Nationwide Coach of the 12 months Diljeet Taylor. Along with the nationwide title, BYU has completed nationwide runner-up twice, gained five-straight convention championships, and had 15 All-People, together with 2021 nationwide champion Whittni Orton, since Taylor took over.
Final season, BYU took eighth at nationals and simply gained the WCC championship. Three-time All-American Aubrey Frentheway gained the WCC particular person title and completed thirty second on the NCAA race to prepared the ground for the Cougars.
The Cougars have expertise this fall however query marks exist. Solely two of BYU’s prime 5 runners on the WCC championships and certainly one of BYU’s prime 4 runners finally yr’s NCAA championships are on the crew this season, with Frentheway and McKenna Lee-Hansen the notable departures.
On the intense facet, junior Lexy Halladay-Lowry comes again because the Cougars’ prime returner after incomes All-America honors in 2022 and ending fourth on the convention meet.
She’ll be joined by All-WCC juniors Carmen Alder and Anastaysia Davis and 2022 WCC Freshman of the 12 months Riley Chamberlain.
Huge 12 ladies’s cross-country
West Virginia’s Ceili McCabe has gained the final two particular person Huge 12 crowns, however Oklahoma State completed with six of the race’s prime 9 finishers to win the crew title in 2022. Since 2011, the Cowgirls have gained 4 titles, together with every of the final three; Iowa State has gained the opposite eight.
Nationally, the Huge 12 has routinely certified three groups for the NCAA championships within the final decade, with Oklahoma State and Iowa State normally main the way in which and West Virginia and Texas making repeat appearances. Final season, Oklahoma State took fourth on the NCAA championships, its highest end in program historical past. West Virginia completed twenty seventh and Texas final at thirty first.
Baylor (2016) and Kansas (2015) are the one different faculties apart from the 4 beforehand talked about which have certified for nationals since 2011. Cincinnati, Oklahoma, TCU and UCF have by no means certified.
How will BYU fare?
Oklahoma State suffered successful with the lack of Natalie Prepare dinner to the switch portal this offseason; Prepare dinner completed a team-best seventh at nationals. However senior All-American Taylor Roe returns after inserting thirteenth on the NCAA championships and second within the Huge 12 championships final yr. Sophomore Billah Jepkirui, who took third on the Huge 12 meet, and Molly Born, who took a yr off from cross-country final season, provides to OSU’s sturdy core.
McCabe, a two-time All-American and two-time Huge 12 Runner of the 12 months, is coming again for a fifth season to tempo West Virginia’s bid to win its first Huge 12 title. The Mountaineers’ subsequent two finishers finally yr’s nationals graduated, however seniors Katherine Dowie, Mikenna Vanderheyden and Jeanne Reix Charat all enter 2023 with plenty of expertise.
Barring catastrophe, BYU ought to return to the NCAA championships in 2023. However like the boys’s facet, on paper Huge 12 ladies’s cross-country may very well be a decent race, with the deeper crew making the distinction. I’ll choose the Cougars to win a detailed one.
BYU ladies’s cross-country coach Diljeet Taylor, heart, poses with members of the BYU ladies’s crew in Stillwater, Oklahoma, on the NCAA champsionships.
BYU Picture