Oh, and they also like to finish races together.

Like in last Saturday's Judge Memorial Invitational cross country meet, Bulldogs senior Samantha McMillan and juniors Lindsay Baker and Hailey Knettles did just that - finishing second, third and fourth, respectively, behind Bingham senior Kim Quinn in the 5-kilometer race.

They have another chance to do that again at Brigham Young Autumn Classic on Saturday, where about 50 schools, including highly touted programs like Timpview, East, Park City, Mountain View, Mountain Crest and Davis, will compete.

"It's an opportunity for us to go against the top girls, to see where we stand time-wise and where we stand against these girls," Knettles said.

Sure, the Judge trio isn't unusual in the world of cross country, where runners travel in packs all the time.

But it doesn't happen often that the runners finish within two seconds of each other - just like at the Judge Invitational. And for the girls, it doesn't matter who finishes in what order, just as long as they finish together.

"We like to stick together, just the three of us in a tight pack, to not let a team break us apart," McMillan said.

The three are so tight that they have one similar goal: In order to win state, they know they have to go through Park City, the defending Class 3-A state champion. Judge finished second last year.

McMillan and Baker transferred in last year - with McMillan coming from Hershey, Pa., and Baker from Louisville, Ky.

Then enter Knettles, who was a staple at Judge already and became close to McMillan and Baker. That was enough for first-year coach Mattie Reed, who was an assistant last year, to start seeing a trend: The three like to stick together.

"There's been days where those three girls get the whole team together," Reed said. "They loop back and they get the stragglers to move up and they have all 20 girls working together."

BYU Autumn

Classic

At the East Bay Golf Course in Provo, located on the south end of University Avenue.

SATURDAY, 9 a.m.

Varsity boys 5K - 10:25 a.m.

Varsity girls 5K - 11:15 a.m.

Runners to Watch

This Season:

BOYS - Luke Puskedra of Judge Memorial, Jared Ward of Davis, Justin Hedin of Mountain Crest

GIRLS - Kim Quinn of Bingham, Candace Eddy of Davis, MacKenzie Overby of Mountain Crest, Samantha McMillan of Judge Memorial