Frentheway, Halladay-Lowry pace women's cross country to top-10 nationals finish

STILLWATER, Okla. — All-American performances from Aubrey Frentheway and Lexy Halladay-Lowry powered BYU women’s cross country to an eighth-place finish at the NCAA National Championships at Greiner Family OSU Cross Country Course on Saturday morning.

FULL RESULTS

PHOTO GALLERY

"I'm proud of these women," said BYU women's cross country head coach Diljeet Taylor. "We would have had to have a perfect day to podium and we didn't have that today, but we did have women who fought and I'm really proud of that." 

With Saturday’s success, the Cougars posted their fifth-consecutive top-10 finish and sixth in seven years under the tutelage of head coach Diljeet Taylor. The program now has 24 all-time top-10 spots at nationals.

Frentheway (20:09.9) and Halladay-Lowry (20:12.2) earned All-American honors as they crossed at 32nd and 34th, respectively. This marks Frentheway’s third-career All-American citation and Halladay-Lowry’s first, giving BYU women’s cross country 66 all-time All-Americans. Fifteen All-Americans have come under Taylor’s tenure alone.

Sadie Sargent (20:25.1) and McKenna Lee-Hansen (20:25.4) gave the Cougars four top-100 finishers with respective results of 70th and 72nd.

Anastaysia Davis, Alissa Fielding and Carmen Alder rounded out BYU’s results from Stillwater, with each finishing under 21:30.

Frentheway started strong running in the front of the pack through the first 3000m before slipping to 21st at 4000m. Halladay-Lowry found herself in 46th to begin the race but ran a 2:41 split to crack 25th at 23rd at 4.93k. Sargent and Davis both jumped five spots over the last 1000m to finish strong.

NC State repeated as team national champion with its Katelyn Tuohy clinching the individual national title.

BYU’s 263 points proved enough to stave-off Virginia and Georgetown for eighth. The Cougars also finished ahead of Mountain Region rivals Colorado (11th) and Utah (12th). BYU came in just two points shy of Notre Dame’s 261 and six points off Northern Arizona’s 257.