SOUTH BEND, Ind. – Behind a pair of top-10 individual finishes from
Hannah Branch and
Savannah Neuberger, the Utah Valley University women's cross country team won the Gold Division race of the 63rd annual Joe Piane Notre Dame Invitational on Friday afternoon at Burke Golf Course in South Bend.
In all, all five scoring Wolverines posted top-30 finishes en route to leading the UVU women to the historic victory at the prestigious meet with 74 total points.
"It was a good weekend for us. We raced pretty hard and did some good things," head UVU coach
Scott Houle said. "I'm pretty excited about how well our women's team competed. I feel like they really made some big leaps forward and a number of individuals definitely stepped up. This will really help give us some momentum as we move forward into the next couple of weeks."
For the third time on the season, the sophomore Branch led the way for the UVU women by placing seventh overall with a blazing time of 17:37.08 followed by Neuberger's ninth-place finish with a time of 17:44.29. Freshman
Maggie Zwahlen was next for the Wolverines by posting a 13th-place finish (17:52.67), while
Aisha Graham-Perez took 17th (17:57.46) and
Mazzie Melaney came in 28th (18:20.27). Megan Nielson (18:33.06),
Kami Lynch (18:39.83),
Taylor Viertel (18:51.79) and
Abby Linford (18:58.04) rounded out UVU's competitors on the women's side by placing 41st, 46th, 58th and 62nd, respectively.
By winning the race, the Wolverine women finished ahead of 17 other teams that included South Carolina of the ACC (6th), as well as Saint Louis (2nd), Indiana State (3rd), Western Michigan (4th), Illinois State (5th), Duquesne (7th), IUPUI (8th), UTEP (9th), Eastern Illinois (10th), Calvin (11th), Youngstown State (12th), IPFW (13th), UC Riverside (14th), Nebraska-Omaha (15th), Incarnate Word (16th), UT Arlington (17th) and UW Green Bay (18th).
Competing in the Blue Division, the Utah Valley men also had a solid outing by placing 10th in a strong 17-team field.
Kevin Lynch, who earned WAC Athlete of the Week honors after winning the UC Riverside Invitational a couple of weeks ago, again led UVU by placing 27th individually in the 5-mile race with a stellar time of 24:31.19.
Anthony Ocegueda was next for the Wolverine men by placing 41st with a time of 24:45.42 while freshman
Britain Reynolds followed in 51st place (24:55.93).
Adrian Jones was next for Utah Valley by posting a 72nd-place outing (25:15.17) and
Kale Sharp rounded out UVU's top-five finishers by placing 75th (25:20.75).
Four other Wolverines too competed for the Utah Valley men and
Geofrey Kemboi paced the group by placing 77th (25:23.15).
Jared Gonzalez-Perez finished in 111th (26:05.92), followed by
Hawk Call in 129th (26:44.26) and
Brandon Edmondson in 132nd (26:54.26).
"It was a rough race for our men's team," Houle added. "We got out pretty well, but seemed to suffer a number of setbacks that caused us to fall back. We then did a nice job of finishing down the stretch, however, as we managed to move from 17th all the way up to 10th over the last mile. When you look at the big picture, I'm pleased with where we finished as we were able to beat some really good teams."
By placing 10th, the UVU men finished ahead of California of the Pac-12 (13th) and Oklahoma of the Big 12 (15th), as well as Temple (11th), Miami (Ohio) (12th), UT Arlington (14th), Santa Clara (16th) and Incarnate Word (17th). The second-ranked BYU Cougars won the race with 23 points, followed by Wyoming (2nd), the host Notre Dame Fighting Irish (3rd), No. 28 Furman (4th), Weber State (5th), Dayton (6th), Florida State (7th), Illinois State (8th) and Iowa (9th).
The victory marked UVU's second team victory at the Joe Piane Notre Dame Invite in two all-time appearances, as the men's team previously won the Gold Division race in 2016.
The Wolverines will now return to the Beehive State to take part at the SUU Color Country Invitational on Saturday, Oct. 6 in Cedar City. The following week, UVU will return to the Midwest to take part at Pre-Nationals at the University of Wisconsin (Oct. 13).
