Lehi People
Local runners are part of BYU’s historic national title sweep
Megan Wallgren | Lehi Free Press
The BYU men’s and women’s cross-country teams brought home a pair of national titles from the NCAA Division I Championships held Nov. 23 in Madison, Wisconsin. Alumni from Skyridge and American Fork high schools were an integral part of the historic double win.
The Cougar men were led by former American Fork runner Casey Clinger. The senior harrier finished the 10K course in 28:45.1, earning sixth place overall and All-American honors.
Not long after the race, Clinger got on a plane back to Utah to be with his wife, Morgan, who would be giving birth to a baby boy in the next few days. He was unavailable for comment, but told the media on race day, “It’s just a dream come true and to do it with my best friends ever, I just can’t describe the feeling. This is what I’ve always wanted and I’m so proud of my guys.”
Skyridge grad and BYU senior Creed Thompson followed close behind Clinger, finishing in 12th place overall with a time of 29:01.5. His top-40 finish also earned him All-American honors. “We took the race by the horns and were brave and put ourselves in it,” Thompson said.
“I wasn’t really focused on the outcome that much during the race, but with 1K to go I saw on the whiteboard that we were in the lead and knew we could win. Once I crossed the line, I looked back on everyone finishing. Then, I saw the score pop up and it was official. It’s surreal,” he said.
Falcon alum Davin Thompson, twin brother to Creed, was the fifth scoring member of the BYU squad. He finished 50th in the 252-man race with a time of 29:33.6. Davin has one more year of eligibility and will be back next year for the Cougars.
“We’ve been talking about winning a national title for four years and it’s evaded us every time,” said Davin. “So many things went wrong for us last year and so it was really hard. God had different plans for us.
“This year we were healthy and had so much depth and a ton of seniors. We knew we had something special. [The national title] was a cool fairytale ending,” he added.
Both Thompson brothers were out in the last year with pelvic stress fractures. Davin missed the 2023 cross country season and Creed the 2024 track season. Their training in the last year has been limited as they battled back and has included a lot of cross-training.
The struggle made his All-American status that much sweeter for Creed. “It feels really good to race how I know I can race and perform to the level I know I can. It’s not always easy. You can’t have your best day every race, so it was great to have it that day. My goal was top 15. I’ve known I was a top 15 guy all year, I just hadn’t proven it yet,” he said.
Creed’s place on the title team made history in another way as well because his wife of five months, Carlee Hansen, ran on the BYU women’s championship team on Saturday.
A men’s and women’s NCAA cross-country title sweep hasn’t happened since 2004, and as far as Creed and Carlee can tell, there’s never been a married couple with a member on both winning teams before.
Hansen, a Woods Cross graduate, started her college career in North Carolina and first ran for BYU as a junior on last year’s team. She and Creed, who began dating in high school, were married in June. This was both Creed and Carlee’s senior cross-country season.
“We won in the same year. Maybe it was God’s doing, maybe a coincidence, but it’s awesome!” Creed said. Of seeing his wife win, Creed said, “It made the vibes a lot better for sure. It was inspiring. At the same time, there was more pressure. They did their part and now we had to show up.”
After earning her own team title, Carlee said, “I was really excited but still had that stress because I knew Creed had to run. After watching Creed cross the line, I let go of all my emotions and just started sobbing.”
Carlee finished fifth on the Cougar team and 65th overall with a time of 20:21.06 in the 6K women’s NCAA Division I Championship race. She battled her own injury near the beginning of the season, coming back from a strained hamstring, and the ghosts of last year’s underwhelming performance atNationals.
“When I crossed the line, none of that mattered because I knew we had won. It was an out-of-body experience,” she said.
“I just watched my team celebrating because I knew what we had done. It was a full-circle moment. Last year we were distraught and now we are celebrating the win. I know how much we’ve grown from then,” Carlee added.
Of Saturday’s win, Davin said, “It’s easy as an outsider to look and see the special day we had, which we did, but you don’t know that there was so much hardship and tribulation we had as a team to get there.
“We’ve been through so much together. We were fighting for each other. We were doing it for each other,” Davin went on. “If you look at results for Saturday there were a lot of people that individually had a rough race, but what pulled through was love and trust for our teammates.”
