LOGAN, Utah - The 22
nd- ranked Utah cross country team finished in third place at the Steve Reeder Memorial on Friday afternoon, led by an 11
th-place finish from junior
Hannah Allred.
Junior
Hannah Allred led the Utes and finished the 5k course in 19:17.72 which was good for an 11
th place finish. Allred ran this same time earlier this year at the Utah State Invite.
"Everybody ran hard and gave a good effort on kind of a cool, breezy, sunny afternoon here in Logan," head coach
Kyle Kepler said. "I am certainly pleased with those efforts and hopefully we will continue to see these girls improve and get better."
Allred ran a time of 19:17.72, which is the same time she ran earlier this year at the Utah State Invite.
Rounding out the top five scorers for the Utes was freshman
Melissa Taggart who placed in 15
th with a time of 19:31.39, junior Megan Perkins who finished right behind Taggart in 16
th with a time of 19:31.78, freshman
Natalie Platil who finished in 21
st with a time of 19:52.60, and junior
Jade Mulvey who finished in 22
nd with a time of 19:54.85.
"Megan kept steadily moving up through the race, as did Melissa, and I thought those girls gave a real nice strong effort," Kepler explained. "Both are super young in cross country and they will just keep on getting better and better."
Also competing for the Utes was freshman
Astrid Lindgren (23
rd, 19:56.28), junior
Megan Spehar (26
th, 20:11.37), and freshman
Emma Earl (27
th, 20:11.39).
Utah scored 75 points behind BYU (34) and Utah State (44). Finishing behind Utah was Weber State with 90 points, Southern Idaho with 106 points, and Westminster with 174 points.
"The main reason we came up here today was to give this group a chance to race and gain that experience that these girls desperately need in most cases," Kepler said.
The Utes will be back in action on Oct. 13 at the Wisconsin Invitational in Madison, Wisc.