COLLEGE STATION, Texas — The No. 24 Utah Valley University women's cross country team continued its winning ways, notching a fifth straight team victory this season at the Arturo Barrios Invitational on Friday morning at Texas A&M.
Morgan Nokes led the team with an eighth-place finish as the team had six of the top 32 individual finishers in the 41-team field.
"The girls ran great the whole race. They went out in the lead pack and ran together," said head coach
Scott Houle. "Ari (Trimble) led us for half the race and then Morgan was able to finish strong to lead the team through the back half. They're starting to run really well. It was a big meet here and good to race well as we prepare for the conference championship and then the regional. We're looking good, just trying to stay healthy and continue to gain confidence."
Nokes finished the 6k in 19:51.4 and has landed in the top eight in each of the four races she's competed in this season.
Lydia Beus was next for the Wolverines, taking 16th with a time of 20:09.9.
Ari Trimble (20th, 20:13.8),
Abbie Fuhriman (22nd, 20:17.2),
Anna Martin (31st, 20:20.7), and
Oakley Olson (32nd, 20:22.7) were also part of the squad to finish in the top 32 with 387 runners completing the race. The rest of the top five teams following Utah Valley included UCLA, Boston College, Ohio State, and Connecticut.
The Wolverine men rebounded after falling behind early on due to a traffic jam of competitors. They were 25th at the first 2k split and 21st after 5.6k. They then climbed 12 spots—to 13th—at the 6.8 split before finishing 11th out of 39 teams.
"There was a big pile up about 700 meters into the race and it took about five minutes for the guys to be able to get out of it and closed the back half of the race well," Houle said. "(Abdulsalam) Farah had a great race, he was in the top pack the whole time and finished solid. Joel (Mendez) did a great job getting out and not getting stuck in that melee and he's starting to get consistent and get healthy again."
Farah took 25th, finishing the 8k in 23:53.6 while Mendez landed in 40th with a time of 24:07.2.
Gilbert Olivas (55th, 24:17.1),
Austin Hone (108th, 24:44.4), and
Gio Ramirez (109th, 24:44.7) rounded out the five who factored into the team score.
The Wolverines will send a group of runners to the Utah Open next Thursday, Oct. 19 at 1 p.m. at Sunnyside Park. The WAC Championship is two weeks away, on Friday, Oct. 27 at Abilene Christian.
