Upcoming Event: Cross Country versus Nuttycombe Invitational on October 17, 2025 at 9:30 AM
9:30 AM
Cross Country
vs Nuttycombe Invitational
Saturday, August 31
Orem, Utah
All Day
University of Utah
vs
Utah Valley Invitational
Cross Country Opens Up Season With Third-Place Finish at UVU Invite
8/31/2019 12:34 PM | Cross Country
The Utes open up the season led by three true freshmen.
OREM, Utah - The Utah cross country team opened up their 2019 season Saturday morning capturing a third-place finish at the UVU Invite. Making their collegiate debuts, the Utes were led by three true freshmen in Grace Burnett, Karli Branch and Ellie Lundgreen.
"I was really pleased with our effort today. I thought we ran hard, competed well, ran smart and obviously we held out our top kids but our three true freshmen led us and that was really phenomenal to see," head coach Kyle Kepler said. "I'm really proud of those gals, they ran really hard on a fairly challenging course that kind of keeps you going up or down the whole time so I thought for their first college experience they started out steady and just keep moving up the whole way and I feel really good about those three and how they competed."
Burnett finished the 5k course in a time of 19:10.3 to earn a seventh-place finish while Branch and Lundgreen paced in together finishing 11th and 12th-place with times of 19:13.5 and 19:14.8, respectively. Rounding out the top five scorers for Utah was sophomore Brooke Manson and senior Jade Mulvey. Manson recorded a new personal best time of 19:42.2 to capture an 18th-place finish as Mulvey finished in 25th with a time of 19:58.6.
"Our fourth runner today, Manson, did a great job and it was certainly her best cross country race of her collegiate career thus far and she finished, as you'd expect, coming down a hill really rolling picking people off," Kepler said.
Also competing for the Utes was junior Astrid Lindgren, senior Anna Busatto, freshman Kaitlyn Mercer and redshirt junior Ashley Licata. Lindgren finished in 33rd (20:07.0), Busatto earned 44th (20:48.9), Mercer captured 48th (21:07.5) and Licata finished in 53rd (21:50.0).
"Everybody that ran today ran hard, competed really well, fought for every position particularly at the end with the downhill finish and I think it was a great start. Certainly a promising start for those three freshman that looked like savvy veterans the way they raced today and they will get more comfortable and race even better as they train more and adapt to the collegiate racing scene," Kepler explained.
As a team, the Utes finished in third place with a total of 67 team points. Southern Utah captured the meet title with a total of 25 team points while host Utah Valley finished in second-place with a total of 46 team points. Idaho State and Georgia State registered a fourth and fifth-place finish with a total of 116 and 118 team points, respectively.
The Utes will back in action next Friday, Sept. 6, as they will travel to Twin Falls, Idaho to compete at the College of Southern Idaho (CSI) Invitational.
Fans can follow the Utah cross country program on Twitter (@Utah_trackfield), Facebook (UtahTrackXC) and on Instagram (@UtahTrackXC).
Players Mentioned
/ Cross Country
/ Cross Country
/ Cross Country
/ Cross Country
/ Cross Country
/ Cross Country
/ Cross Country
/ Cross Country
/ Cross Country
Coach Kyle Kepler celebrates 20 years at the helm of Utah Cross Country/Track & Field
Monday, August 11
Utah Cross Country's McKaylie Caesar Feature - A Medical Miracle
Tuesday, April 29
Utes Insider – Cross Country Runner Bella Williams
Wednesday, November 17
2019 Track & XC - Meet the Teams
Thursday, September 05