Mountain Region Championships preview

PROVO, Utah – The women’s cross country team competes at the Mountain Region Championships this Friday in Fort Collins, Colo., for one last chance at qualifying for Nationals.

“If we want any chance of making it to Nationals, we need to beat Colorado this weekend,” head coach Patrick Shane said. “We can do it, but it will be tough. They haven’t been out of the top two in our region in years. Of the runners on our team, only two of them have any experience running at Nationals. We have a young team, but they know what they have to do to come out on top.”

The two Cougars with experience running at Nationals are senior Michaelanne Laurent and sophomore Sarah Darby.

In the most recent Mountain Region rankings, Weber State is ranked No. 1 followed by New Mexico and Colorado as No. 2 and No. 3, respectively. BYU is currently ranked No. 6 behind Colorado State and Southern Utah.

During the West Coast Conference Championships, BYU finished third with 85 points behind San Francisco and Portland. The Cougars were led by Freshman Natalie Shields’ fourth-place overall finish. All of the Cougars’ five scoring runners finished in the top-22 individually.

Rachel Stewart finished second for BYU and 18th overall. Lindsey Sowards Nielson, Darby and Laurent finished third, fourth and fifth for the Cougars and 21st, 22nd and 23rd overall, respectively. All five runners are also set for this weekend’s race at regionals.

Other runners set to compete at regionals are Andrea Nelson Harrison, Kathryn Vidmar, Ashleigh Warner and Laura Young.

The women’s race will begin at 12 p.m. MT at Collindale Golf Course.

Collindale Golf Course is familiar territory for BYU and does not have any difficult or unique features about it. In the past the two obstacles the team has faced in Colorado are a slight change in altitude and cold weather.

CSU will be live tweeting from @CSURAMSTRACK.

More information for the Mountain Region Championships can be found on Colorado State's Athletic website.

Full results can be found at Runnercard following the race.