MONMOUTH, Ore. - On a cold and windy day, the No. 16-ranked Utah cross country team ran a great race at the Pac-12 Championships earning its highest finish in program history placing third. The trio of Poppy Tank , Bella Williams and Sarah Feeny paced the Utes with all three finishing in the top-10.

"Big day for our program and it was the best the best finish in program history since entering the Pac-12 and to have three runners in the top-10 I couldn't say enough about Poppy and Bella," head coach Kyle Kepler said. "To see three Utes in that picture of the top-10 is really gratifying for how far this program has come and hopefully where we are headed."



The Utes secured the third-place finish placing their five scoring runners 6-7-10-27-36, totaling 86 points and just beating out No. 5-ranked Colorado (89). Race favorite Stanford took home the conference championship sweeping the podium placing their runners 1-2-3-8-13 for a total of 27 points. No. 3 Washington finished second with 55 points while No. 20 Oregon completed the top-5 teams with 115 points.

Competing in their second 6k of the season, Tank and Williams ran strong races keeping up with the front of the pack throughout to earn the sixth and seventh-place finishes, respectively. Tank came in with a time of 19:49.6 while Williams registered a new 6k PR time of 19:50.6. Three places back was Feeny earning 10th and also recording a new PR time of 19:55.3.

Rounding things out for Utah's scoring runners were Cara Woolnough and Trina Moreno . Woolnough finished in 27th fora new PR time of 20:30.5 while Moreno clocked in with a time of 20:48.0 for 38th-place.

Also competing for the Utes were Scarlet Dale , Ellie Lundgreen and Emma Christensen . Running hard, all three earned new 6k PR's coming in with times of 21:00.9 (Dale), 21:01.8 (Lundgreen) and 21:06.2 (Christensen). Dale finished in 49th, Lundgreen in 51st and Christensen in 55th. In a field of 111, Utah finished all 10 of their runners in half of the field, an impressive feat considering the competition in the Pac-12.

"Overall, I couldn't be more proud or pleased with this group. They ran their guts out today and we had about a 15 point deficit in the last mile that we made up and we were able to sneak into third," Kepler said. "I'm just really pleased, they did the work and it's a fun group to be apart of. There's a lot of self-belief and a lot of belief in each other and I couldn't be any more proud.

Team Results

#2 Stanford - 27

#3 Washington - 55

#16 Utah - 86

#5 Colorado - 89

#20 Oregon - 115

Arizona - 191

RV Oregon State - 197

UCLA - 217

California - 241

Washington State - 250

Arizona State - 318

USC - 400

Up next, the Utes will host the 2019 NCAA Mountain Regional Championships in two weeks on Friday Nov. 15, at the Rose Park Golf Course. The women's 6k race is slated to begin at 11 a.m. MT, while the men's race begins at noon.

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