The University of Utah Cross Country will travel to the codfish state to compete in the Battle at Beantown, hosted by Boston College. The meet is set for Friday, Sept. 21 with the competition set to begin at 3 p.m. EST.
The team is coming off an extra rest week after their meet against BYU last weekend was cancelled due to poor air quality. According to Sarah Feeny, due to the cancellation the team was able to rest a little bit more after a hard week of workouts. “We can be extra rested for this week. It was probably a blessing in disguise,” she said.
This is the first time the team is making the journey to historic Boston. This will be the first test for the team who will be competing against nationally ranked teams including, #11 Providence, #24 Minnesota, and #22 Syracuse. Even though the team is up against some strong competition, according to head coach Kyle Kepler, this meet is very important for the team on their effort to make it back to the NCAA Championships.
The Utes have a strong group of runners coming into the meet, including Aubrey Argyle, Sarah Feeny, Kennedy Powell and Sadie Wassum. The team had a strong start to their season with Feeny winning the first race of the season and Scarlett Dale taking second the following week. For some members of the team, this is their first chance to race alongside one another. “Scarlett and I actually haven’t raced together yet, so we are actually really excited to run together,” Feeny said.
Feeny also commented on the readiness of the freshmen runners to compete at high levels. “College is certainly a little bit different but they have all reached to that [high] caliber before, so I think they will be major contributors,” Feeney said. According to head coach Kyle Kepler, it is “go time” to see what the freshman class can truly do. “It’s time to take the training wheels off,” Kepler said.
The Utes have an off week next week but will be back in action the first week of October. The team will travel back up to Logan on Friday, Oct. 5, to compete in the Steve T. Reeder Invitational, hosted by Utah State University.
