Luis Grijalva Beats BYU's Conner Mantz and Casey Clinger; Whittni Orton Leads Parade Of BYU Women In Top 10

By Doug Binder, DyeStat Editor

(Photo from NAU Twitter)

A college cross country season that has been turned upside down by the Coronavirus pandemic saw a return to normalcy for a few of the powerhouse programs Saturday at the Oklahoma State University Invitational. 

Northern Arizona's men and BYU's women, sidelined by conference restrictions up until now, both ran to victories in one of the highest profile meets of the season. 

NAU's Luis Grijalva raced for the first time since the Big Sky Conference Indoor championships in late February, clocking 23:30.2 for 8 kilometers on the course that will serve as the NCAA Championships site next March. Grijalva fought off reigning NCAA champion BYU's talented duo of Conner Mantz, second in 23:31.4 and Casey Clinger, third in his first race back from a 2-year mission to Japan, in 23:38.7.

NAU's prized freshman Nico Young did not race, but veterans Abdihamid Nur (seventh) and the trio of Corey Gorgas (13th), Ryan Raff (14th) and Drew Bosley (15th) got it done. 

The final team scores are a bit deceiving because Colorado, of the Pac-12 Conference, is not officially permitted to run as a team. Eduardo Herrera led the unattached Buffaloes by placing fourth. John Dressel, who finished sixth, is out of cross country eligibility. 

Clayson Shumway, who is not part of the BYU roster currently but exepects to be in 2021, also ran unattached and was eighth after driving from Provo to Stillwater to compete.

RESULTS

Officially, it was NAU 37, Oklahoma State 47, BYU 71, Southern Utah 80 among the top four of eight teams competing. 

The Big Sky Conference, which had shut down all fall sports, recently announced a decision to allow schools to compete twice in cross country this fall. That opened the door for the Lumberjacks. 

BYU, which has been playing football, also got a somewhat unexpected chance to compete, but some discretion was allowed by the WCC to its member schools. 

Whittni Orton led six BYU women to top-10 finishes as the 2019 NCAA runners-up scored 22 points to dominate the women's 6-kilometer race. Orton ran 20:27.8 for the victory and was nearly 11 seconds up on Oklahoma State sophomore Taylor Roe. 

Aubrey Frentheway (third), Lexy Halladay (sixth), Anna Camp-Bennett (seventh), Sara Musselman (ninth) and Sophie Lasswell (10th) contributed to the lopsided win. 

Rachel McArthur and Tayler Tuttle, both from Colorado and running unattached, were fourth and eighth, respectively. 

Southern Utah, led by Allison Pray's fifth-place finish, was second in the team scoring with 50 points. Oklahoma State was third with 95.