Mountain West Cross Country Championships — Fresno, Calif.
When/Where: Friday, Woodward Park, Fresno, Calif.
Women: 11 a.m. MT — six kilometers
Men: 11:45 a.m. MT — eight kilometers
Results: GoLobos.com, TheMW.com
Live Stream: Mountain West Network
Despite their track record at the conference championships, the Lobos are keeping things relatively simple for this weekend.
Run smart, run hard and run as a team.
The University of New Mexico’s nationally ranked cross country teams are heading to the Mountain West Cross Country Championships in Fresno, Calif., Friday as they aim to defend their streak of consecutive titles.
The Lobos, who have won six straight MW women’s titles and five consecutive men’s championships, will look to extend their streak against strong competition through a team-running approach that has earned them tremendous results during the regular season.
“The expectation is to go in and run as smart as possible and as hard a possible,” New Mexico head coach Joe Franklin said. “Make sure you works as a team. If you do that, regardless of the outcome, then you had a good race.”
The Lobos have used team running to great effect this season at the Notre Dame Invitational and the Wisconsin adidas Invitational, and will look to ride that formula at Woodward Park in Fresno.
Both teams registered team spreads (the time between their No. 1 scorer and No. 5 scorer) right around 30 seconds versus huge fields of numerous nationally ranked teams at Wisconsin two weeks ago.
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| Calli Thackery |
“If you have nine people running as individuals, you won’t run well as a team,” Franklin said.
However, at a conference championship that includes the 25th-ranked Colorado State men and the 23rd-ranked Boise State women, New Mexico will be tested.
Although the Lobos have head-to-head wins over both the Colorado State men (at Notre Dame) and the Boise State women (at Wisconsin), they know that previous results mean little at the conference championships.
All they have to do is look back to when UNM start its current streak of title sweeps.
Between the formation of the Mountain West in 1999 and 2009, now-departed member BYU won 17 conference championships in cross country, sweeping the conference titles seven times.
But, the Lobo men, under Franklin, were finally able to dispatch the Cougars (at BYU) in 2009, a year after the women halted the BYU women’s run. That victory in 2009 sparked New Mexico’s current streak of title sweeps that ranks as the second-longest active streak in Division I and is tied for the fourth-longest in Division I history.
But this history, while positive for the Lobos, doesn’t weigh on the minds of this year’s group of runners.
“The guys that are on the team now don’t know anything about the time we beat BYU five years ago,” Franklin said. “They don’t have any idea that happened on BYU’s golf course. And then the women don’t know the women that won the first one.
“This is independent. They’re trying to win a championships as their own group.”
And the conference coaches still give the Lobos the respect they’ve earned from their streak, listing them as the favorites to extend their title run.
In each of three coaches’ polls the conference released this year (which included a preseason poll, a midseason polls and a pre-championship poll), the UNM men and women were selected as the top teams in the MW. (New Mexico did share top honors with CSU in the men’s midseason poll.)
The latest poll, a pre-championship ranking released Wednesday, saw the Lobo men gain seven of the eight first-place votes and the women 10 of the 11 first-place votes. Since coaches can’t rank their own teams, UNM garnered all the first-place votes it possibly could.
Nonetheless, Franklin and his harriers are focused on the race and not the predictions.
“It’ll be close on both sides,” Franklin said. “Very close.”
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| Alex Cornwell |
For the women, former USTFCCCA National Athlete of the Week Charlotte Arter leads a talented group of women. Arter, who was the individual champ at Notre Dame, has been a top-four finisher at the last two Mountain West championships.
But some of the Lobos heading to Fresno also have experience at the conference meet.
Calli Thackery, Nicola Hood and Tamara Armoush are three runners that have been on a championship-winning team, and all three have scored for UNM this year. Redshirt freshman Alice Wright, the Lobos’ No. 2 runner this season, is looking for her first team title.
Overall, the women have posted six of the conference’s 14 fastest times over six kilometers, credentials that, along with their victory at Notre Dame, expect to lean heavily in New Mexico’s favor come race time.
On the men’s side the Lobos will rely on a solid cast of runners, including Dan Studley, Jake Shelley, Alex Cornwell and Ross Matheson, among others.
Studley placed 41st at Wisconsin, while Cornwell helmed the men at the Lobo Invitational in September. Shelley and Matheson have also scored for New Mexico this season, with both trading the Lobos’ No. 3 position during the previous two meets.
Add in 2012 MW Freshman of the Year Elmar Engholm, who made his season debut at Wisconsin, and the Lobos are in position to defend their streak.
As a team, the New Mexico men own a number of the conference fastest times over eight kilometers/five miles, including a handful of sub-24-minute times over five miles.
The No. 10 women will compete at 11 a.m. MT, and the No. 18 men at 11:45 a.m. MT. Check back Friday evening on GoLobos.com for meet results and a New Mexico recap.