BETHLEHEM, Pa. — The 24th-ranked Utah Valley University women's cross country team notched its third straight team title to start the 2023 season, winning the Paul Short Run on Saturday at Lehigh University.
Morgan Nokes led the way with a fourth-place finish while
Ari Trimble was sixth; both runners have also notched individual wins so far this season. Nokes finished the 6K Gold Race in 20:25.3 while Trimble's time was 20:28.8.
"That was the goal today, to finish first. We're getting better and better and if we can stay healthy and keep our names in the rankings, we'll potentially be able to qualify for the NCAA Championships again," said UVU head coach
Scott Houle. "Morgan ran a really smart race and I think she's going to be a consistent one or two for us the whole year. Ari did really great work in front of the pack, and we're really excited to see how she has continued to improve. Having five girls in the top 25 was pretty awesome to do."
The Wolverine women won the 44-team race with
Anna Martin,
Lydia Beus, and
Abbie Fuhriman also factoring in winning team score. UVU tallied 77 points to finish in front of Wake Forest (129) while Boston, Penn State, and Quinnipiac rounded out the top five. Martin (20:45.9) took 20th, Beus (20:51.3) was 23rd and Fuhriman (20:52.7) was right behind her, in 24th.
Led by
Mo Guled's sixth-place finish, the UVU men were eighth overall out of the 43 teams competing in the Men's 8K Gold race. Guled completed the 8K in 24:08.1 while
Joel Mendez was 21st, coming in at 24:29.9.
Abdulsalam Farah was just two seconds behind Mendez, finishing 24th with a time of 24:31.8.
Austin Hone (25:01.6) was next for the men, coming in 92nd, with
Adam Bunker (25:18.8, 141st) rounding out the team scorers.
"It was good race. We got out a little bit slow and weren't able to react to that but were able to finish well. Mo's starting to race really well and with Joel and Farah, those three had good showings in this field. I think they're going to be solid going forward."
Up next for Utah Valley will be the Color Country Invitational at Southern Utah in Cedar City on Saturday, Oct. 7.
