C-E-L-E-B-R-A-T-I-O-N!!!

....It's time party and have a good time....

University of Utah history was made today by Senior Amanda Mergaert.  Watch the video to find out what she did!  I'm incredibly proud of her.  What a senior season!  Enjoy!

NCAA Press Conf Pt1

Click HERE to watch the 2012 NCAA Division I Cross Country Championships live on line on Saturday, November 17th.  The live stream will begin a few minutes prior to the start of the women's race (12pm EST).

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It was a "Red Letter" day for our women's cross country team.  For the first time in program history we beat our rivals from BYU and finished sixth overall.  Leading the charge as she has for the last three years was senior Amanda Mergaert.  She's been a "big moment" runner throughout her career and nothing changed as she breezed to a fourth place finish (her third consecutive top ten Regional meet finish).  The goal was to qualify for her third consecutive NCAA Championship meet using as little energy (mental or physical) as possible and she did that.  Running with the top group the entire way, Amanda looked relaxed and cool as she met her goal for this race.  As a coach it's hard to ask for much more.

Sophomore newcomer Giselle Slotboom had the best race of her young career finishing 12th overall and claim All Region honors for the second consecutive year.  (She was all Region in the South Region a year ago as a member of the Jacksonville State team).  She broke 21:00 (20:57) for the first time ever over the 6K distance.

Sophomore Susannah Hurst just missed all Region honors with a 29th place finish.  She had rough go of it at this meet as a freshman, so for her to respond this year and just miss the top 25 was a great effort.  Another sophomore, Nikki Rietz, had the best race of her career to finish as our fourth runner.  Not far behind Rietz was freshman, Andrea Chavez, closed out our scoring runners.  Soph's Kate Stringfellow and Lauren Mills also competed and ran hard.

Overall, I was very pleased.  Certainly, beating our rivals from down south for the first time was fun.  We have a great deal of respect for them and what they have accomplished in the past.  However, our girls have worked extremely hard over the last eight years to continue to move our program forward towards national prominence and this is simply another step in that goal.

Amanda will compete in her third straight NCAA cross country championships this Saturday in Louisville, KY.  She ran very well (despite running with a cold) on this course a month ago at the Pre National meet.  Feel free to go to our facebook page and wish her good luck.  Facebook...Search: University of Utah Track & Field.