Men’s track and field No. 10 in preseason rankings

NEW ORLEANS – The U.S. Track & Field and Cross Country Coaches Association (USTFCCCA) ranked the BYU men’s track and field team No. 10 in its preseason rankings on Thursday.

The Cougars open the season ranked in the top 10 for the first time since starting the 2009 season ranked No. 10. This will be the fourth time in 10 years that the BYU men’s team has been ranked in the preseason top 15. The BYU women’s team opens the season ranked No. 50 out of the 131 NCAA Division I teams rated by the USTFCCCA.

The USTFCCCA National Rating Index primarily bases its preseason standings off of previous seasons’ results from the top returning athletes and how each athlete ranks compared to other returning individuals nationally.

All-American Whittni Orton received the highest individual preseason rating on the women’s team, ranking ninth in the mile. The women’s team had two other athletes rank in the top 20 with All-American Andrea Stapleton-Johnson rated 12th in the high jump and All-American Erica Birk-Jarvis 20th in the mile.

The Cougars had four male athletes garner a total of five top-15 individual national rankings with All-American Clayton Young ranked second in the nation in the 3000m and 11th in the 5000m. All-American Rory Linkletter starts the year rated fourth in the nation in the 5000m with Danny Carney ranked 11th and All-American Connor McMillan 13th in the same event.

The full USTFCCCA preseason rankings can be found on ustfccca.org.