STILLWATER, Okla. – The Utah Valley University women's cross country team posted a third-place finish out of a stacked 15-team field while the men placed sixth out of 16 teams at the renowned OSU Cowboy Jamboree on Saturday morning in Stillwater, Oklahoma.
Returning NCAA qualifiers
Maddie Bench Empey and
Britain Reynolds paced the Wolverine women and men on the day. The senior Bench Empey led the women's squad with an 11th place finish by covering the 6K course in a blazing time of 21:20.9, while the junior Reynolds finished 31st to lead the men with an 8K time of 24:34.0.
The UVU women placed third with 114 points to finish ahead of Tulsa (127, receiving votes for the top-30), Texas (166), Kansas State (188), SMU (192), Incarnate Word (299), Texas Tech (313), Kansas City (349), Arkansas Tech (351), UT Arlington (372), Oklahoma (383), Oklahoma Christian (423) and Oklahoma City (426). No. 8 Colorado won the women's race with 30 points, while the host and No. 23 Oklahoma State Cowgirls placed second with 35. The Utah Valley men finished sixth with 205 points to best Kansas State (294), Incarnate Word (360), Texas Tech (363), Northwest Kansas (367), UT Arlington (385), Oklahoma City (391), Oklahoma (434), Oklahoma Christian (444), Kansas City (540) and Clarendon (578). The defending National Champions and top-ranked Northern Arizona Lumberjacks won the men's race with 41 points, while No. 6 OK State (64) won a tiebreaker over No. 12 Colorado (64) to take second, and Texas finished fourth (98) and No. 8 Tulsa fifth (125).
"We ran pretty well today. There was some big-time competition here with some ranked teams, All-Americans and returning National Champions, but our men and women came here and went toe-to-toe with them and competed very well," head UVU coach
Scott Houle said. "Britain and
Max Mahon ran strong for our men's team while Maddie Empey ran an impressive race to finish 11th, which is a great feat at a meet like this. Overall, I'm really excited with how our women ran to finish third and beat some very strong teams. I'm also proud of Mazzie Melaney and our freshman
Caila Odekirk and all of our girls for having solid races to round out our team score. I feel that we accomplished just what we came here to do and I'm looking forward to our next meet."
Mazzie Melaney Preston was UVU's second finisher on the women's side by placing 17th with a 6K time of 21:38.3, while freshman
Caila Odekirk ran strong in the final leg to place 23rd (21:57.4) and
Maggie Zwahlen followed in 31st (22:27.1).
Taylor Viertel (22:35.1),
Kate Richardson (22:52.5) and
Liz Zwahlen (22:59.2) also ran well for the women's squad by taking 35th, 42nd and 47th, respectively.
On the men's side, freshman
Max Mahon ran a great race on Saturday by finishing right behind Reynolds to place 32nd with an 8K time of 24:36.2.
Kale Sharp was next by placing 51st with a time of 25:16.6, followed by
Geofrey Kemboi in 59th (25:24.2),
Adrian Jones in 63rd (25:27.8),
Joe Benson 84th (25:57.5) and
Joshua Peters 89th (26:05.9).
The Wolverines will next head to Pocatello, Idaho next weekend to take part at the Idaho State Invitational on Saturday, Sept. 25. The following weekend, UVU will head to South Bend, Indiana to compete at the Joe Piane Notre Dame Invitational on Oct. 1.
