CEDAR CITY, Utah - The No. 6-ranked Utah cross country team was back in action Saturday morning at the Color Country Invitational where they placed third at the Cedar Ridge Golf Course. True freshman Karli Branch paced the Utes finishing in fourth place.

Meet host Southern Utah nudged out Utah Valley to capture the team title finishing with 38 points as Utah Valley totaled 46 points. Utah earned third with 68 points, Dixie State took fourth with 98 points, and Idaho State finished in fifth with 100 points.

"We finished in third today and it was a solid day for us," said head coach Kyle Kepler . "I felt good about the effort of all the kids that raced. We certainly ran more of our emerging athletes and kids that are still developing and needed an opportunity. We were led by Karli Branch who had an off week last week. She just wasn't feeling herself, but today she ran terrific and finished fourth overall."

Branch finished the 4k course climbing two spots in the last few minutes of the race, finishing in a time of 14:59.45 to collect three points for the Utes. Anna Busatto finished eight places later in 12th in 15:20.61. Jade Mulvey followed in Busatto placing 16th in 15:28.40, as Sara Leonard (15:36.89) and Kaitlyn Mercer (15:39.45) rounded out the five scoring runners for Utah finishing in 23rd and 24th, respectively.

Completing the seven entries for Utah was Nicole Griffiths finishing in 34th (16:11.76) and Abby Rasmussen in 36th (16:17.42).

"Overall, I thought it was a great day for this crew," Kepler explained. "I was very pleased with their effort. I thought they ran smart and did the things we talked about during our course preview yesterday in terms of strategy and how to run the course. It was a perfect day down here in Cedar City for a race and the course was challenging as they were running up and down the whole time, which is pretty similar to our course at Sunnyside Park which we will be racing at in the next couple of weeks."

The Utah cross country team will travel to Madison, Wisc., to compete at the Nuttycombe Invitational next Friday Oct. 18. Hosted by Wisconsin, the race will be held at the Zimmer Championship Course and is slated to begin at 10:00 a.m. CT/9:00 a.m. MT.

Fans can follow the Utah cross country program on Twitter ( @Utah_trackfield ), Facebook ( UtahTrackXC ) and on Instagram ( @UtahTrackXC ).