BYU women’s cross country flies out to Oregon for the Bill Dellinger Invitational
BYU women’s cross country is off to the Beaver State to compete in the Bill Dellinger Invitational in Oregon Friday.
This invitational is named after Bill Dellinger, a men’s track and field coach for University of Oregon that led his team to four NCAA team titles and 12 top-three NCAA finishes. In his 30 years of coaching, he mentored 45 cross country All-America honors.
The racecourse at the Pine Ridge Golf Club will an outer loop (2320 meters) and a finish loop (1350 meters). The course is entirely grass and on fairways.
Last week, the No. 7 Cougars started the cross country season strong at the Autumn Classic with a perfect score of 15. BYU freshman Jenna Hutchins finished first with an outstanding 17:26.2 and BYU junior Carmen Alder right behind her 0.1 second later.
“Going into this conference is more competition,” BYU senior Aubrey Frentheway said on her expectations going into the Big 12. “We get more practice with championship racing. I think that will be really good; but honestly, my motto this year has been trust coach.”
BYU head coach Diljeet Taylor has led the Cougars since 2016 with tremendous success, leading them to five WCC Championships, six top-10 finishes at NCAA Championships and an NCAA Division-I championship in 2021.
“This year, I did something that I haven’t done in a long time,” Taylor said. “I put them all in uniform in the home meet at the Autumn Classic. We have such a young group and just want to get the jitters of the uniform out of the way, prior to the first away race. It was fun!”
BYU last ran the Bill Dellinger Invitational back in 2019 and finished in first place. Previous runners from the 2019 team — Aubrey Frentheway, Anastaysia Davis and Alissa Fielding — will be competing in this year’s race as well.
The Cougars will be going head-to-head against Oregon, UCLA, Montana, Idaho, San Diego State and Oregon State.
The invitational will occur on Friday at 2:45 p.m. MDT and live results can be seen here.
