LOUISVILLE, Ky. – BYU men’s cross country put the cap on a successful season with a 12th-place overall team finish at the NCAA Championships on Saturday.

BYU head coach Ed Eyestone had hoped for a better result, but he was still very pleased with his team and the season they put together.

“Our expectations going in were much higher, but I’m proud of the guys for the effort they put forth,” Eyestone said. “It was a very fast start, and I think we ran smart. If you go out too hard in a race like that, it can totally destroy you.”

Dallin Farnsworth led the way in the 10k for the Cougars with a 74th-place finish. Aaron Fletcher was in the top 35 at the 8k mark, but his pace slowed over the final 2,000 meters as he finished 81st. Connor McMillan (84th), Dallin Taylor (132nd) and Nicolas Montanez (146th) rounded out the BYU team score of 406 points. Dylan Shawhan (155th) and Jonathan Harper (225th) also ran in uniform for the Cougars.

“Ultimately, we just weren’t quite as high as I would have liked to see us,” Eyestone said. “It wasn’t the best day, but we still finished 12th out of 301 (NCAA Division I) teams in the nation. There’s nothing to be too discouraged about considering it was a really successful year for us. I told the guys last night that if the season were to end right then, it would still have been a really good year for us.”

No. 2 Syracuse (82 points) upset No.1 Colorado (91 points) as the Buffaloes’ streak of back-to-back national titles came to an end. Stanford (third), Oregon (fourth) and Iona (fifth) rounded out the top five teams. Oregon junior Edward Cheserek became the first man ever to win three successive NCAA individual titles with a time of 28:45.8.

Fletcher, who has put together a remarkable senior campaign, fell short of his goal of becoming an All-American for the 2015 season. In NCAA Division I cross country, the top-40 finishers at the NCAA Championships are named to the All-America team.

“Our team captain, Aaron Fletcher, did a great job of putting himself in a position where he wanted to be,” Eyestone said. “He was shooting for a top 25 spot, which he maintained through about eight kilometers. From then on, he kind of ran out of gas. I was proud of his effort, but he came up about two kilometers short.”

Eyestone believed his team was still a little tired after last Friday’s regional meet. It was the first time all season BYU had only one week to recover between meets. He believed fatigue was a contributing factor to his team’s inability to finish where they had hoped.

BYU will return five of the seven runners from this year’s NCAA team in 2016. Fletcher and Shawhan are seniors and will graduate. Four of the five returners were underclassmen this season.

With the 12th-place finish, BYU has now finished in the top 20 in the country for eight-consecutive seasons. It is also the 14th time in Eyestone’s 16 years as head coach that the Cougars have finished the year in the top 20.

Click here for complete meet results.

PROVO, Utah – No. 6 BYU men’s cross country is preparing to run at the NCAA Championships this Saturday in Louisville, Kentucky in the final leg of a very successful season that saw the Cougars reach their highest national ranking since 2012.

“We’re excited about the national meet. This marks the 17th year in a row we’ve qualified our men’s team, and I think they’re ready to roll,” BYU coach Ed Eyestone said. “They have a quiet confidence and determination about them, and hopefully we’ll go there and run to the best of our ability.”

BYU qualified for the national meet by receiving an at-large bid from the NCAA after taking third at the NCAA Mountain Region Championships last Friday. The Cougars currently hold the third longest active streak for NCAA Championships team appearances at 17. They trail only two-time defending national champion Colorado (24 years) and No. 3 Stanford (22 years).

“You can’t control how other teams perform. You can’t really do anything to slow them down; you just have to run as fast as you can,” Eyestone said. “Colorado and Syracuse have some very good talent, potentially four or five All-Americans. If they do their thing then I think we’ll have our work cut out for us. However, I think we can put together a nice race where we get a couple of All-Americans as well. The bottom line is if we can score under 200 points then we will end up on the podium, but if we score over 200 points probably not.”

The Cougars are hoping to have some strong runners back in the lineup on Saturday to bolster their team depth.

“We have some people we held out (at regionals). Nicolas Montanez intentionally sat out last week so he would be fresh, and he looks good and I think he’ll have a nice race. Dallin Taylor was pulled out of last week’s race because he stepped on a rock and bruised his heel. He’s looked better with each passing day, so we hope to put him back in the rotation. I think we’re a stronger team with him provided he can run at 100 percent. We’ll make a judgment call on him on race day. Jonathan Harper didn’t run last week either because he was sick, but he is getting healthier so we hope to use him as well.”

BYU projects to have Aaron Fletcher, Dallin Farnsworth, Connor McMillan, Dylan Shawhan, Montanez, Taylor and Harper as the seven runners in uniform on Saturday. Mitchell Briggs also travelled with the team as an alternate.

The men’s 10k race is hosted by the University of Louisville and will begin at 1 p.m. EST. The race will be held at the E.P. “Tom” Sawyer State Park.

The national meet will be broadcast online at NCAA.com. Live stats will also be available. Links to both can be found on the BYU men’s cross country schedule page.

The 31 competing teams are listed below: