The Rice Owls women's cross country team had five runners compete at Friday's HBU Invitational, placing third out of four teams in the 5,000m race.

Rice junior Cali Roper placed fourth and the Owls as a team finished sixth out of 16 teams at Saturday's Texas A&M Invitational.

Rice sophomore distance runner Elsa Racasan took third place at Saturday's World Junior Mountain Running Championships, finishing in a time of 20:31.

The Rice duo of Cali Roper and Elsa Racasan finished first and second to lead the Owls women's cross country team to a first-place finish at the 40th annual Rice Invitational.

Rice cross country launches the start of their 2015 season this weekend when they host the 40th annual Rice Invitational Meet on Friday, Sept. 11 at the Rice Intramural Fields.

For the eighth time in the past 10 years, Rice University student-athletes earned the Conference USA Institutional Excellence Award in 2014-15 by combining for an annual GPA of 3.246, the league office announced on Friday.