It’s another milestone for Nelah Roberts as former Skyline champion adds a national title with BYU

PROVO (KSL.com) — Skyline grad Nelah Roberts, a four-time cross country state champion, can add another trophy to her collection.

Roberts, now a freshman at BYU, was part of the Cougars’ team that won the NCAA Division I Cross Country Championships on Saturday.

Roberts finished 83rd overall and was BYU’s sixth finisher in 20:27.4.

BYU women’s cross country gave up the individual honors, and ran for the team.

In essence, the Cougars followed the slogan of their head coach Diljeet Taylor: #Run4Her.

The breakout coach at BYU has produced an NCAA individual champion, Whittni Orton Morgan in 2021, and sent her first two Olympians to Paris this past summer in Morgan and steeplechase standout Courtney Wayment. Now, it was time to reel in the team championship for the top-ranked Cougars at Zimmer Championship Course in Madison, Wisconsin.

Lexy Halladay-Lowry finished a career-best 11th in 19 minutes, 48.4 seconds, and BYU did all of its scoring in the top-65 to hold off second-place West Virginia by 17 points Saturday morning. Providence finished third (183), followed by Northern Arizona (206) and Oregon (210).

“For every single individual, we gave up a lot of our individual goals and we were completely and utterly committed to the team,” said Halladay-Lowry, a senior from Meridian, Idaho. “In years past, the commitment to the self has taken away from the team. We were able to let go of that this year. By doing that, we didn’t just step up for ourselves but for each other. That’s why we did what we did today; that’s why it happened.”

It’s the Cougars’ fifth national title in program history, including second under Taylor, who has five top-two finishes at the national meet since she took over the BYU women’s program in 2016.

But that wasn’t the end Saturday.

BYU swept the cross country team titles moments later when Casey Clinger finished sixth overall in 28:45.1 to pace five scoring runners in the top 50 with 124 points. Iowa State was 13 points back for second, followed by Arkansas (202), Wisconsin (212) and Northern Arizona (237).

“We had a target on our backs this year, ranked No. 1, but a lot of the pundits had us as No. 2 or even 3. I love the way that my guys got out. We put some pressure on early and we held on, maybe by our fingernails but we held on.”

The Cougars’ eight national championships (six for the women, two for the men) is tied with Colorado for the sixth most in NCAA history. BYU is the first school since the Buffaloes in 2004 — and fifth overall — to sweep the men’s and women’s team titles.

But while Taylor has produced 16 individual All-Americans in her storied tenure at BYU, this one was all about the team.

The Cougars ran together through the first 4,000 meters of the 6-kilometer race, good for second or third early on. But BYU’s top-four finishers of Halladay-Lowry clocked a final kilometer split of 3:14.8, and Riley Chamberlain (3:16.5), Carmen Alder (3:16.6) and Taylor Rohatinsky (3:16.3) clocked nearly identical final splits to help the Cougars pull away.

At that point, with just under 2,000 meters to go, Taylor saw her team “lock in.”

“That wasn’t me. That was God,” she told ESPN. “I’m so grateful that he guided us through this. I don’t think my coaching could’ve done what happened today.”

Chamberlain finished 31st in 19:59.4, Alder was 39th in 20:03.6, Rohatinsky took 43rd in 20:06.5, and Carlee Hansen added a 65th-place time in 20:21.6.

“They ran for each other,” she added. “They let go of individual success, and focused on the team. That’s what cross country is all about.”

Annastasia Peters paced the Utah women with a top-50 finish, clocking a 44th-place time of 20:08.0 to finish 14 seconds ahead of teammate Erin Vringer.

The BYU men put all five in the top-25 through the first 3,000 meters of the men’s 10K final, paced by Davin Thompson with an 8:36.5 early split. Clinger surged to the front of the pack through 6K, pacing a time of 17:23.8.

But the American Fork native with a chance at becoming BYU’s first-ever five-time All-American didn’t stop there. Clinger ran like a man ready to get in, win a title, and get home — which he probably was, as his wife Morgan was back in Utah ready to give birth to the couple’s first child.

“It’s a big weekend,” Clinger said understatedly after the race. “I can’t get home soon enough.”

Clinger’s sixth-place finish overall was the best of his career, and comes after he finished fifth in the 10,000 meters at the U.S. Olympic team trials this past summer — missing the Olympic team by just two spots with a time of 27:59.71.

“We were focusing on the build this year, on putting a lot of work in early and having our best race every week,” Clinger said. “To have this race be our best race, we did just that. Today is the ultimate joy.”

Creed Thompson added a 12th-place finish in 29:01.5, Joey Nokes was 31st in 29:21.5, and Lucas Bons 39th in 29:24.9

Camren Todd ran a 25th-place time of 29:17.4 to lead Utah State, which got 30:06.7 from Spencer Nelson to finish 22nd as a team.

Allan Steele, EastIdahoNews.com, contributed to this story.