BYU’s Hedengren and Utah’s Nielsen Earn Mountain West Conference Cross Country Honors

Hedengren fares well at prestigious Roy Griak Invite, while Nielsen captures fastest MWC time this year.

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Sept. 29, 1999

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. – BYU junior John Hedengren and Utah senior Johanna Nielsen have been selected as the Mountain West Conference men’s and women’s cross country athletes of the week, respectively.

Competing at the Roy Griak Invitational in St. Paul, Minn., Sept. 25, Hedengren, a Richland, Wash., native, led BYU to a second-place team finish with a time of 24:37, good for seventh place at the event. Paced by his effort, the 27th-ranked Cougars defeated eight teams that were ranked ahead of BYU entering the race. With their showing at the 28-team Roy Griak, the Cougars have jumped to sixth in the latest top-25 rankings.

Nielsen, a Springville, Utah, native, recorded the fastest time by a Mountain West Conference runner this year at the Sun Dodger Invitational in Seattle, Wash., Sept. 25. Her time of 17:27 was good for a seventh-place finish at the event which featured 103 runners. Nielsen’s time was more than a minute faster than her closest teammate as the Utes finished in ninth place in the 11-team event.

BYU will next compete at the Stanford Invitational on Oct. 2, while Utah will return to the course at the Arizona State Invite on Oct. 10.