It may have been the inaugural Big 12 Conference Women’s Cross Country Championships Saturday at the Iowa State cross country course, but it sure had a familiar feel to it for the former Big Eight schools.

Especially at the top of the team standings — where Colorado, Missouri, Nebraska and Iowa State finished first through fourth, respectively.

Fourth-ranked Colorado ran away with the team honors at the meet. All the runners battled windy and blustery conditions, and the temperature was only 38 degrees during the meet.

The Buffaloes had the first three individual finishers. Kelly Smith won with a time of 17 minutes 59 seconds on the 5,000-meter course. Carrie Messner was second at 18:02 and Shayne Wille was third at 18:03.

“We’re pretty satisfied,” Colorado Coach Mark Wetmore said. “(It was) a little breezy, but it was breezy for everybody. Colorado kids are used to about any kind of weather.”

Jane Groves was Iowa State’s top finisher at 12th. She was timed at 18:27.

“I feel like I let the team down, really, because if I would have made up a few places we could have been third,” Groves said. “I suppose 12th isn’t too bad to finish, but I feel like I could have done better.”

Senior Sydney Pounds’ 14th-place performance gave Iowa State two All-Big 12 honorees. Pounds finished the course at 18:36.

“We’re kind of disappointed … we wanted to get second or first,” Pounds said. “But I think we probably ran about as well as we could have today. Everybody gave it what they had.”

Colorado won with 30 points, No. 13 Missouri was second with 78 points. Nebraska edged out the Cyclones for third, with 123 points to 125. 17th-ranked Baylor finished fifth with 148 points.

“It was a strange race,” Iowa State Coach Dick Lee said. “The first mile went out very, very conservative. Our kids just really had a tough time making the change that happened after that.”

Groves agreed with Lee.

“It was a really strange race in the sense that it started out so slowly,” she said. “We all seemed to be packed together. I would have liked to have gone out faster, but I didn’t want to take it on or anything.”

Iowa State will run next at the NCAA Regional meet at Peoria, Ill. Nov. 16.