Peace, prayer and persistence: Stories of how the BYU women’s cross country team won the 2024 NCAA title
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- BYU runners celebrate after the NCAA national championship race at the Zimmer Championship Course in Verona, Wis., on Saturday, Nov. 23, 2024.
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- BYU senior Lexy Halladay-Lowry hugs head coach Diljeet Taylor after the NCAA national championship race at the Zimmer Championship Course in Verona, Wis., on Saturday, Nov. 23, 2024.
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- BYU head coach Diljeet Taylor talks to her team before the NCAA national championship race at the Zimmer Championship Course in Verona, Wis., on Saturday, Nov. 23, 2024.
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- BYU runners compete during the NCAA national championship race at the Zimmer Championship Course in Verona, Wis., on Saturday, Nov. 23, 2024.
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- BYU runners pose for a photo with head coach Diljeet Taylor (center) after the NCAA national championship race at the Zimmer Championship Course in Verona, Wis., on Saturday, Nov. 23, 2024.
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- BYU runners take a moment together after the NCAA national championship race at the Zimmer Championship Course in Verona, Wis., on Saturday, Nov. 23, 2024.
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- BYU senior Lexy Halladay-Lowry competes during the NCAA national championship race at the Zimmer Championship Course in Verona, Wis., on Saturday, Nov. 23, 2024.
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- BYU’s Carmen Alder (right) and Taylor Lowell (left) celebrate with teammate after learning they had won the NCAA women’s cross country team title at Verona, Wis., on Saturday, Nov. 23, 2024. Taylor Lowell 149
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- BYU senior Lexy Halladay-Lowry competes during the NCAA national championship race at the Zimmer Championship Course in Verona, Wis., on Saturday, Nov. 23, 2024.
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- The BYU women’s cross country team reacts after learning they had won the NCAA team championship in Verona, Wis., on Saturday, Nov. 23, 2024.
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- The BYU women’s cross country team poses for photos after winning the NCAA title in Verona, Wis., on Saturday, Nov. 23, 2024.
The poignant images from Zimmer Championship Course in Verona, Wis., on the morning of Nov. 23 showed the jubilation and powerful emotions of the BYU women’s cross country team as they held off every challenge to win the program’s sixth NCAA national championship.
It was the culmination of an incredible year — but being the best in the nation on that day when everything was on the line was just a small part of the story of the 2024 Cougar squad.
BYU head coach Diljeet Taylor and senior Lexy Halladay-Lowry talked about what the Cougars went through individually and collectively to reach the pinnacle of their sport during an in-depth interview last week.
Here are some of the personal stories they shared about what went on behind the scenes:
Not alone
As thrilling as winning the national championship was, Halladay-Lowry singled out two instances when things were really hard for her as her favorite moment of 2024 and the biggest lesson she learned.
When she got hurt a month and a half before nationals, the BYU senior had to alter her training regime to try to maintain her fitness as she worked to get healthy again.
As she was encouraging her teammate to practice hard, she was having a tough time maintaining her own confidence as instead of running she was spending hours in the pool.
“There was one time I just finished the last half hour of the week where I was only swimming, and I would just cry because I was just exhausted,” Halladay-Lowry said. “I had done so much that week and I was just emotionally tired.”
She felt the weight of expectations and the fear that even her best wouldn’t be enough.
“I was like I’m not super woman,” Halladay-Lowry said. I can’t do this.”
She recalled putting on a brave face in the locker room but feeling overwhelmed and disheartened as she walked to her car.
“I just sat in there and I just started crying,” Halladay-Lowry said. “I called my dad, I called my husband, I called two of my other friends and no one answered. I was just sitting there feeling like no one cares, no one sees me.”
But sitting there in the parking lot, she had a powerful personal epiphany.
“I just thought, like, God will answer you,” Halladay-Lowry said. “I pulled in my arms and I said a prayer, and it was just another moment of peace. Yeah, what you are going through was hard right now, but you’re OK. You can do this and it will be worth it.”
She didn’t know then how things would turn out but she said felt such strong peace that she knew she wasn’t alone.
“I know that if I just rely on God, whatever needs to happen will happen,” Halladay-Lowry said. “It just was so much easier keeping him in the loop.”
There were still times, however, that she felt somewhat isolated from the team. When her Cougar teammates went to compete at regionals in Reno, Nevada, the week before nationals, Halladay-Lowry didn’t make the trip.
But the BYU senior said her favorite moment of the entire year was learning that she wasn’t forgotten.
“Coach texted me the next day about their meeting the night before the race,” Halladay-Lowry said. “She’s like, ‘they’re running for you. They’re running this for you because they know what you’re doing for them.’ That’s the moment that made it all worth it. I knew they see and understand what I’m doing for the team, and I see what they’re doing for the team. It was just a mutual love and understanding about what we were trying to accomplish together.”
There for each other
Halladay-Lowry was just one of many of the BYU athletes who dealt with tough injuries or illnesses during the 2024 season — but the Cougar senior said that had a silver lining.
“It allowed us to be better than we would’ve if we had been healthy all season,” Halladay-Lowry said. “By letting that go, you are letting go of the outcome. You are completely committed to the process. When we weren’t sure if I was going to run, it forced other people to step up and dial in on what their role would be for the team.”
Before the season, BYU junior Taylor Rohatinsky wasn’t sure she was going to be able to compete as she recovered from surgery, but Halladay-Lowry encouraged her because she knew Rohatinsky could play a big role.
In October, however, she had to face her own setbacks and instead was on the receiving end of an enormous amount of encouragement from her teammates.
“I was the one to tell my teammates that they would be OK,” Halladay-Lowry said. “When I started running into my challenges, I had to do what I preached. I had to make a choice because I was really hurting. I was trying to be strong but a few teammates knew and it was weird. I had to believe.”
Taylor said it was hard because she knew she had tremendous talent on her team but throughout the season there always seemed to be another obstacle.
“Nothing was really panning out during the season,” Taylor said. “But what they were able to do was to look beyond all that and get to the line and race for each other.”
Ready to run
Even though BYU had the No. 1 ranking heading into nationals, Taylor knew that meant nothing. With the challenges they had faced, she knew there were reasons that other teams could envision surging to the front.
“Every coach knows when two of your top five might not be at their best, you’re probably not going to be the clear favorite,” Taylor said. “I didn’t go in with the mindset that we were the clear favorite. I knew there were other teams that could have a really good day, but I still had hope. They kept that hope alive by different things that they were showing me, in workouts and just their demeanor. The calmness and the confidence that they had was different.”
As the Cougars prepared for the race to start, Taylor said that feeling was even more pronounced and was a moment that really stood out to her.
“I felt really at peace leaving them on the line,” Taylor said. “The last words I said were just ‘I love you guys.’ The gun was about to go off in seven minutes and they were still pretty calm, so that gave me a good feeling.”
Halladay-Lowry said it was clearly a different emotion at that moment than she had felt from the team in other years.
“Because of Covid, this is my fifth time competing at the NCAA championships,” Halladay-Lowry said. “Every other time, you knew it was nationals. Everyone was on edge. I was on edge. But this time was different. We knew we were there and everyone still felt the nerves, but we all fought to be there. To actually be there together made it lighter. We were all so happy. I think it is the difference between having to be there and fighting to be there.”
She also credited Taylor for helping them have the right mindset.
“Leading up to it, Coach told us it was going to be like Christmas morning,” Halladay-Lowry said. “You are going to be nervous and excited, but make sure the overriding feeling is excitement. That’s also what changed the vibe of the entire team.”
Overcome
The 21 minutes after that gun went off are “mayhem,” according to Taylor. She talked about everyone running from point to point and even having to lean under a guy’s arm to yell encouragement to her runners because she couldn’t get to the rail.
But through it all, she liked what she was seeing.
“At the 4k mark when I saw them, I could just tell by their faces that they were in control of themselves and running within themselves,” Taylor said. “I felt pretty good. I didn’t know if we were going to win it but we were in it and I felt good about where we were at and how my women looked.”
She kept tabs on them as the race progressed and recognized right before the finish that if everyone maintained their position, they had a good shot.
At the finish line, Taylor watched as all seven Cougar athletes completed the race: Halladay-Lowry in 14th at 19:48.4, Riley Chamberlain in 31st at 19:59.4, Carmen Alder in 39th at 20:03.6, Taylor Rohatinsky in 43rd at 20:06.5, Carlee Hansen in 65th at 20:21.6, Nelah Roberts in 83rd at 20:27.4 and Taylor Lovell in 88th at 20:28.6.
“I had imagined that moment so many different times,” Halladay-Lowry said. “Why go through all of that if the end goal isn’t to win? I imagined that when I crossed the line I would yell and be all excited, but when it came down to it, I just cried. I was like, wow, we went through all of that and got what we wanted, what we worked for.”
She said it was one of the most fulfilling feelings she had ever had.
“Leading up to that moment, there had been so many tears of doubt that I couldn’t help but cry,” Halladay-Lowry said. “To finally be able to allow that emotion to come and have it be tears of pure joy, I had never experienced that before. I’ve had great moments in sports but that was probably the best moment.”
Taylor said she had to take a moment to compose herself as well as she joined her team.
“I just felt pure pride,” Taylor said. “There’s not a lot of moments in coaching that you get that feeling but I’ve been lucky. I’ve had lots of great moments here at BYU. I was really proud and super humbled to be able to coach them.”
Many of the Cougar athletes were also visibly emotional as they realized they had achieved their dreams.
“By investing in each other, you get to know their struggles,” Halladay-Lowry said. “It’s not even necessarily what is going wrong in the sport but in life in general. To have each of us so invested in each other, taking on each other’s sorrows throughout the season, then to cross the finish line and look at each other and know what they had been through to get there, that added to the emotion. I knew I had been invested in their dream as well.”
Even more than a week after watching her BYU athletes win the title, Taylor still felt that joy deeply as she talked about what it meant.
“That was a group of women who got on the line for each other,” Taylor said. “Those tears that they were shedding were for their teammates. They were so happy that they could do that together.
“I’ve been coaching 20 years, and I’ve never had a team as together as this team, as in it for each other as much as this team and as happy for each other’s success as these women. For me as a coach, the most rewarding piece of it is just how knitted these women are going to be for the duration of their lives because of what they got to do together.”
She said the most powerful lesson she learned was that the best thing she could do was be fully invested in her athletes, even it meant risking a lot of pain if things didn’t go their way.
“We’ve had amazing moments in 2024 all around,” Taylor said. “It was not just this one win, but we had lots of wins along the way. It was purely because of making sure that we were doing this the right way by investing and believing in these women. That is something that I will continue to take in my coaching.
“Every single one of those women had an inspiring journey and for them to trust me enough and believe that we actually had a shot, it’s just a very inspiring and humbling feeling.”
