PROVO, Utah -- The BYU women's cross country team placed second overall at the BYU Autumn Classic on Friday, finishing behind No. 17 Weber State and ahead of Utah Valley University and Idaho State.

It was the Cougars' third race of the season and head coach Patrick Shane believes his team is on the right track.

"It was a solid effort when you consider we have eight or nine runners we haven't raced yet because I feel we need to wait a little longer to open their season," Shane said. "I feel like we are further ahead than I expected at this point. Lindsey and the others have been racing well, so it puts us in a good position for the big races coming up."

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In her first race of the season, Lindsey Sowards Nielson led BYU and finished fourth overall with a time of 17:23.1. Candace Eddy Carlisle finished 9th overall in 17:54.8 and the rest of the Cougars' top five was rounded out by Maren Hanson Fassmann (17:57.3), Carrie Jube (18:06.0) and Makenna Smith (18:08.8) who finished 11th, 13th and 16th overall, respectively.

"I was injured last year, so I haven't ran in a cross country race in two years," Sowards-Nielson said. "I worked really hard over the summer in order to make sure I'm healthy and I'm pretty happy with the way things went. It's feels really good to be running again."

Weber State's Amber Henry led all runners with a 5k time of 16:58.9.

Full results for the BYU Autumn Classic Invitational can be found here.

The Cougars will head for Toledo, Ohio, next week for the Toledo Inter-Regional Bubble Buster on Sept. 21.

PROVO, Utah – After a first-place finish in last week’s Twilight Classic, the BYU women’s cross country team sets its sights on another victory at the BYU Autumn Classic.

The women’s 5K race will take place at 6 p.m. MDT at Cascade Golf Course in Orem, Utah.

“As the season goes on, we are continuing to race more of our core runners,” head coach Patrick Shane said. “So far, I’ve been really encouraged with what I’ve seen. It’s nice to have the luxury to bring our runners into the mix when they’re ready. It has allowed other runners to step up and shine. The Autumn Classic will be no different. The top runners from last week won’t be competing this week in order to conserve them for the rest of the season.”

The annual Autumn Classic is an invitational event open to college and high school teams. This year the women’s team will match up against runners from Idaho State University, Utah Valley University, the University of Utah and nationally ranked Weber State University (17).

Last week freshmen Ashleigh Warner, Danica Wyson, Rachel Stewart and Laura Young dominated the Twilight Classic finishing second, third, fourth and fifth, respectively. All 13 BYU runners finished in the top 20.

In order to preserve the strength of his runners, coach Shane plans to run a new group consisting of upper and underclassman. Some of the runners set to compete include Lindsey Sowards Nielson, Maren Hanson Fassmann, Carrie Jube and Makenna Smith.

Smith, who competed last week at the Twilight Classic, finished eighth overall in 14:59 to close out the Cougar top five.

Kathryn Vidmar, Candace Eddy Carlisle and Jessica Hilton are also set to compete in the Autumn Classic.

The 5K, spectator-friendly course is three easy loops, well marked and easy to follow. Cascade Golf Course was the venue of the 2009 Mountain West Conference Cross Country Championships. 

Admission to the race is $5. Children who are five years old and under receive free entrance, as do youth runners (14 and under) that wear their track or cross country uniforms.