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.

PROVO, Utah -- The BYU cross country teams host their only home meet of the season Friday at the Cascade Golf Course in Orem, Utah.

After winning the Utah State Invitational at the beginning of the month, the Cougars look to use the home race to help determine which runners will be traveling to their upcoming invitationals.

“This race is going to help round out the traveling team,” head coach Ed Eyestone said. “We’ll be putting a lot of emphasis on the performances this weekend to determine who’ll be traveling with us to the University of Oregon in a couple of weeks.”

Eyestone decided to hold out his top runners at the Utah State Invitational but said he plans on racing at full strength on Friday.

“This will be the first race of the season that we’ll go full tilt,” he said. “It’ll be fun to see how we compete, especially with the University of Minnesota running. They are ranked No. 17 nationally, so it will be a good test for us.”

Steve Flint and Spencer Gardner led the way for BYU at the Utah State Invitational, finishing second and fourth, respectively. Rex Shields and Jared Ward, both Preseason All-West Coast Conference honorees, will make their season debuts on Friday.

Besides the University of Minnesota, the Cougars will be joined by men’s teams from San Bernardino Valley College, Idaho State and Utah Valley University.

The men’s race is scheduled to begin at 5 p.m. MT.

Admission to the race is $5. Children who are five years old and under receive free entrance, as do youth runners (14 and under) that wear their track or cross country uniforms.

Results for the men’s race can be found here after the completion of the race.