BYU cross country sweeps men's and women's Big 12 championships

BYU cross country had a successful second year competing in the Big 12.

Both the men's and women’s teams took home the respective titles Friday as they competed in Waco, Texas.

The women, who were ranked No. 1, won their second consecutive Big 12 championship while the men upset No. 1 Oklahoma State to win their first Big 12 title.

BYU women’s cross country head coach Diljeet Taylor said, "The mindset today was to embrace the imperfect. The race isn't going to feel great, but just stick to the race plan and fight for each other. That is what they did. They found their battles within the race and really fought."

Coach Ed Eyestone echoed Taylor when speaking about the men’s performance today.

“Our whole hope coming into the Big 12 Championships was to make it a good race,” he said.

Senior Lexy Halladay-Lowry led the Cougars with a time of 19:50.43 as she placed fifth. Juniors Riley Chamberlain and Taylor Rohatinsky finished just after Halladay-Lowry with career-best times of 19:54.27 and 19:55.29 to earn sixth and seventh place. Senior Carmen Alder was the fourth Cougar to crack the top-10 as she placed 10th with a time of 19:58.71. Destiny Everett capped off the scoring for the Cougars with a 13th-place finish and a career-best time of 19:59.56.

The team finished with 41 points to claim the victory over West Virginia, which finished with 60 points.

As for the men’s upset over Oklahoma State, they were led by senior captain Casey Clinger who finished first for BYU and third overall with a time of 22:09.14. He was among six Cougars to finish in the top 15 for the men’s 8K race. They also scored 41 points while winning their first Big 12 title.

Sophomore and Olympic steeplechaser James Corrigan finished seventh in 22:29.7 while senior Joey Nokes came in eighth with a time of 22:30.2.

Junior Creed Thompson (22:37.1) and senior Lucas Bons (22:37.1) rounded out BYU's team scoring while finishing 11th and 12th. Junior Davin Thompson was BYU’s sixth finisher and 15th overall with a time of 22:51.5. However, his finish didn't count for scoring except for tiebreaker scenarios.

"We knew Oklahoma State has some amazing talent,” Eyestone said. “My hope was maybe putting some bodies up there with them, they wouldn't go through 10 like they are used to. I think we did a good job putting pressure on them early. For a while we had a lot of orange in front of us, but my guys didn’t give up. They took heart. We are going to celebrate and enjoy this.”

The Cougars will be back running again while competing at the NCAA Mountain Regional held in Reno, Nevada, at the Washoe County Golf Course on Nov. 15.

Both teams will look to build upon their conference championships and continue their dominant run.