No. 27 Cross Country Heads Back to East Coast

Friday, October 12

State College, PA

8:45 AM

University of Utah

Penn State National

10/9/2018 3:36 PM | Cross Country

Penn State National Meet Information

Utes to Compete in Penn State National Open on Friday

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. – The No. 27-ranked Utah women's cross country team will head to University Park, Pa., this weekend to compete in the Penn State National Open. The meet will take place at the PSU Blue-White Golf Course on Friday, Oct. 12, with the women's 6K set to begin at 10:45 a.m. ET/8:45 a.m. MT.

"We are headed back to the east coast as this marks another new meet on our schedule," said head coach Kyle Kepler. "We are excited to go back out there as we had a pretty good result the last time out there, when we competed in Boston three weeks ago."

Along with meet host Penn State, a total of 28 women's teams will compete in this week's event. Utah is one of five USTFCCA-ranked teams competing this week, which includes a field of No. 14 Michigan State, No. 19 Penn State, No. 26 Georgia Tech, and No. 29 Princeton. Dartmouth and Georgetown also received votes in the poll.

This week Utah will send a total of 12 runners to compete at Penn State. Competing for the Utes will be: Aubrey Argyle, Scarlet Dale, Caitlin Faust, Sarah Feeny, Nicole Griffiths, Sara Leonard, Sarah Newton, Natalie Platil, Kennedy Powell, Sophie Ryan, Sadie Wassum and Cara Woolnough.

All 12 Utah runners have competed in at least one race this season, while Friday's competition will mark the fourth running appearance for Powell. This will be the third season event for Argyle, Dale, Feeny, Leonard, Newton, Platil, Ryan and Woolnough.

"This is a huge weekend around the nation in regards to cross country meets," said Kepler. "This weekend will play a big key in regional championships that we have coming up later in November. Along with this meet, there are also some big meets in Madison, Wisc., and College Station, Texas. This meet we will be competing in features five nationally-ranked teams, including ourselves. There are also ten teams in this event that are ranked among the top-five in their respective regions."

The Utes are coming off a third-place finish at the Steve T. Reeder Memorial in Logan, Utah, this past Friday. The squad totaled 93 points overall, with Emma Christiansen leading the way with a ninth-place finish overall. She finished the course with a 5K personal-best time of 18:51.11. Meanwhile, Astrid Lindgren took 14th overall after finishing in a personal-best time of 19:17.44. The Utes tallied four top-20 runners overall, and all five competitors finished among the top-20.

Fans can follow the Utah cross country program on Twitter (@Utah_trackfield), Facebook (UtahTrackXC) and on Instagram (@UtahTrackXC).

Click below to listen to head coach Kyle Kepler's weekly podcast. This week the head coach talks about the team and the week ahead, prior to competing in the Penn State National Open.