Cougars take first at BYU Autumn Classic

PROVO, Utah -- In its only home meet of the season, the No. 3 BYU men's cross country team placed first overall, beating No. 17 University of Minnesota, Utah Valley University and Idaho State.

After resting their top runners at the Utah State Invitational, the Cougars ran at full force on Friday. The result was a strong display of BYU's talent and depth as seven Cougars finished in the top 10 overall.

"Any time you come out and you have six or seven guys sweeping the thing, you've got to feel pretty good," BYU coach Ed Eyestone said. "Overall it showed some great depth and a lot of cross country is about having good depth. If we can get five to seven guys running withing 30 seconds of each other at the big national meets, we can be very competitive and do some great things."

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Nine Cougars finished in a span of 23 seconds, and the five that scored for BYU finished in a 12-second window. Jared Ward and Steve Flint crossed the finish line together, although Ward was credited with a first-place time of 20:02.7 while Flint's official time was 20:02.9. Spencer Gardner (20:11.1), Rex Shields (20:13.3) and Taylor Farnsworth (20:15.6) rounded out the Cougars' top five, finishing third, fourth and fifth overall, respectively.

Conner Peloquin ran unattached and finished with a time of 20:14.1, which would have earned him a fifth-place finish overall.

The Cougars' next meet will be at the Bill Dellinger Invitational in Springfield, Ore., on Sept. 29. 

Full results for the BYU Autumn Classic can be found here.