PROVO, Utah – The BYU men’s and women’s cross country teams are set to compete at home in the West Coast Conference Championships at the East Bay Golf Course, on Saturday, Oct. 27. This is the first year the WCC Championships will be hosted in Provo.
“I’m looking forward to all the BYU fans cheering the men’s and women’s teams onto victory,” BYU head coach Ed Eyestone said. “We know that we have our work cut out for us. On both sides, our top competition is going to be Portland.”
Following a first-place finish at the Pre-Nationals Invitational in Wisconsin and a four-meet winning streak, the No. 2 BYU men’s cross country team will be racing this weekend to claim the conference title for the fourth-straight year and sixth time in eight years. BYU’s ranked competition will include No. 5 Portland and No. 26 Gonzaga.
Last season at the WCC Championships, the Cougars were led to a perfect score and first-place finish by Connor McMillan. McMillan previously took first this season at the Joe Piane Notre Dame Invitational. Clayson Shumway, Clayton Young and Rory Linkletter also have first-place finishes from this season’s meets.
“We haven’t cut back in our training as much as we did maybe last year at this time,” Eyestone said. “When we do that, we run the risk of being a little tired at the Conference meet, but we’re doing that to hopefully power through at the National meet.”
Men’s Team Notables
- The Cougars took first at the 2017 WCC Championships with a perfect score of 15
- Connor McMillan led BYU with a first-place finish at the 2017 WCC Championships
- Since 2011 when BYU joined the WCC, the men’s team has claimed the championship title five times
“We’re super excited to be approaching the championship portion of our season,” BYU associate head women’s coach Diljeet Taylor said. “The girls have been working really hard and this is what we’ve been preparing for. The girls feel a home course advantage being in Provo and having the opportunity to do a practice there.”
Coming off a fourth-place finish at Pre-Nationals led by Erica Birk-Jarvis, the No. 9 women’s team is looking to claim the women’s WCC Championship title after finishing in second place the past three years. BYU's ranked competition will be No. 19 Portland.
At last season’s WCC Championships, the women took second, with Courtney Wayment finishing first for the Cougars and sixth in the meet. All-American Birk-Jarvis has led the Cougars this season with three first-place BYU finishes.
“The goal at a championship meet is obviously to win,” Taylor said. “The last two years we’ve come up in second place so we’re going to focus on executing our race plan and see how the competition ends up for us.”
Women’s Team Notables
- The women’s team has finished second at the WCC Championships for the past three seasons
- The Cougars took first in the 2014 season with a score of 36
- All-American Erica Birk-Jarvis last competed in the WCC Championships in 2016 when she took ninth overall and third for BYU
The WCC Championships will be hosted at the East Bay Golf Course in Provo, Utah, with the women’s 6K beginning at 10:30 a.m. MST followed by the men’s 8K at 11:30 a.m. MST. The meet will be streamed live on TheW.tv and live stats are available on recordtiming.com. Follow the BYU cross country Instagram and Twitter accounts for updates on the race. BYU welcomes fans and spectators to support the cross country teams on the home course.