ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — To start the season, the Lobos looked to be in midseason form.
The University of New Mexico men’s and women’s cross-country teams rolled to strong performances as they opened the 2014 campaign at the Lobo Invitational Saturday morning.
The women dominated with seven finishers in the top 10 while the men posted four top-15 runners. The women also bested New Mexico State and UTEP in the double dual-scored meet, while the men handled NM State in one of their dual meets.
“It was good,” New Mexico head coach Joe Franklin said. “We wanted to get out and just compete. We have a major meet in three weeks. We usually don’t run this early, but we have a lot of new people and we just want them to get out there and run and get used to the course.”
New Mexico, which features a number of new faces on both squads, used the meet to gain some early-season experience as the Lobos look toward hosting the NCAA Mountain Region Championships in November.
The Lobos also scored the meet for just the second time since 2008, allowing an opportunity to see how they stacked up against their competitors across five kilometers.
The three NCAA Division I schools at the meet — New Mexico, UTEP and New Mexico State — all had their runners’ scores tabulated in a dual-meet fashion, with each team registering round-robin results.
The New Mexico women topped the Miners 17-46 in the low-win-score format and the Aggies 16-47. The men upended NM State 20-38, but fell to UTEP 30-26.
Leading the women was the duo of Calli Thackery and Alice Wright, who crossed the line with almost identical times. Thackery won the event — the first Lobo to win the Lobo Invitational since 2008 — with a time of 18 minutes, 5.04 seconds, while Wright was right behind at 18:05.06.
Amber Zimmerman took third in 18:07.64, and was followed by fifth-place Nicola Hood (18:23.24) and eighth-place Sophie Connor (19:01.72) in scoring for UNM.
“That whole group of women (had standout performances),” Franklin said.
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However, the Lobos ran tremendously well as a team, notching another six runners in the top 25.
Nicole Roberts (ninth place, time of 19:01.73), Tamara Armoush (10th, 19:04.87), Sophia Torres (11th, 19:06.93), Chloe Anderson (15th, 19:44.08), Adriana Lopez (18th, 20:06.47) and Stephanie Mladinich (25th, 20:45.68) all placed top-25, with Elisa Woody (31st, 21:53.31) rounding out the Lobos’ contingent.
On the men’s side, New Mexico registered strong results despite sitting some of their top runners.
Nevertheless, Alex Cornwell and Graham Thomas provided a solid punch for the men as they placed six runners in the top 20.
Cornwell took fifth overall with a time of 15:26.93, while Thomas was close behind with an eighth-place time of 15:37.70. Also scoring for the Lobos were Ross Matheson (10th, 15:44.32), JP Cordova (11th, 15:44.65) and Dan Studley (16th, 15:58.13).
“Alex Cornwell on the men’s side had a really good race,” Franklin said. “It was his first real go at cross country and did a really job.”
Zach Castillo (18th, 16:03.52), Chris Graham (27th, 16:21.78), Kyle Fast Wolf (31st, 16:33.21), Matt Bergin (37th, 17:06.81) and Tyler Valdez (43rd, 17:27.74) rounded out the Lobos’ runners.
UTEP’s Anthony Rotich was the top finisher for a second straight year with a time of 14:59.54.
The Lobos return to action on Oct. 3 when they travel to the Notre Dame Invitational in South Bend, Ind.