ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. – Halfway through the women’s race on her home course, Alice Wright lost track of how many kilometers, or “K’s”, she had left to run.
“When it got to 3K, which I actually thought was 4K, I decided to make a move and then I saw I had an extra 2K, so I panicked a little bit,” the redshirt freshman Lobo said.
But she had nothing to worry about, considering her talent and her teammates.
“The support was absolutely amazing and I got the finish.”
After battling against tough competition at the NCAA Mountain Regional Championships Friday, the University of New Mexico’s nationally ranked cross country teams are in position to move onto the national championships next week.
The Lobo women placed second behind Wright, the women’s individual champion, and will automatically advance to the NCAA Championships next Saturday in Terre Haute, Ind. The men, after placing seventh overall, will have to earn an at-large bid, which will be announced Saturday.
“The women were outstanding,” New Mexico head coach Joe Franklin said. “Alice ran exceptional … It was a really, really good run for the women. And the men, I’m not too sure what happened.”
With their runner-up performance, the No. 9 women have qualified seven years in the row, dating back to 2008. And despite finishing seventh versus arguably one of the stiffest fields, the 13th-ranked men should grab an at-large spot to the NCAA Championships via their regular-season résumé.
It would be the sixth consecutive NCAA appearance for the men and would be the sixth straight year New Mexico has sent both teams to the NCAA Championships.
New Mexico is just one of four schools—along with Colorado, Stanford and Villanova—to have sent both their men’s and women’s teams to the NCAA Championships from 2009 to 2013.
But, despite the history the Lobos have had at the regional meet, their goal was to just advance.
“Obviously we wanted the win,” Wright said, “but we weren’t necessarily going into it looking for the win. We mostly just wanted to make sure we qualified for nationals.”
And Wright certainly did her part in powering the Lobos to the NCAAs.
Her time of 20 minutes, 51.10 seconds was the best in the race at the UNM North Golf Course, giving New Mexico back-to-back regional champions. Sammy Silva won the race last year.
And although she lost track of how much more she had to run, Wright had little trouble finishing first as she claimed a five-second victory over runner up Erin Clark of team champion Colorado.
“She keeps getting better and better and really put the hammer down in the last mile,” Franklin said. “She did a great job.”
But Wright wasn’t alone in pacing the women to second place as a team, with Charlotte Arter and Calli Thackery both placing top 10.
Arter, an All-American from 2013, placed third overall with a time of 21:05.93, while Thackery covered the six-kilometer course in 21:27.39 to place 10th.
Only New Mexico and Colorado had three runners in the top 10, while third-place BYU had a pair.
Anna Burton (18th place, time of 21:44.06) and Nicola Hood (24th, 21:52.56) also scored for the Lobos, while Heleene Tambet (34th, 22:10.87) and Emily Reese (40th, 22:18.11) rounded out the team’s finishers.
As a team, New Mexico tallied a team score of 56 points, while Colorado combined for a 43-point score. BYU (112 points), Northern Arizona (149) and Wyoming (157) placed third through fifth, respectively.
The Lobos’ team score is their lowest since 2010, when they won the race with a 53-point effort.
For the women, this will be their seventh straight appearance at the NCAA Championships and 11th overall, counting two trips to the AIWA championships. The Lobos finished 10th each of the last two years, ninth in 2011, fifth in 2010, 13th in 2009 and 18th in 2008 in their string of NCAA appearances under Franklin.
On the men’s side, the Lobos placed seventh out of 17 despite a pack spread of under a minute.
Ross Matheson crossed the line first for the men, placing 24th with a time of 30:24.28. He was joined by Dan Studley (26th, 30:31.59), Elmar Engholm (31st, 30:44.81), Jake Shelley (33rd, 30:51.74) and Matt Bergin (44th, 31:13.53) in scoring.
Donovan Torres (63rd, 31:53.21) and Alex Cornwell (70th, 32:03.26) also competed for the Lobos, who posted a team score of 158 points.
Buoyed by a ridiculous team spread of eight seconds en route to winning the Mountain West Championships on Halloween, the men fought to seventh place overall by dint of a solid 49-second spread.
“You’re never disappointed because I know they can look at themselves and know that they gave everything they can,” Franklin said. “Sometimes this happens. In every sport, we struggle a little bit.”
But against arguably the hardest region—which featured unanimous No. 1 Colorado, No. 10 Northern Arizona, No. 15 BYU, No. 29 Air Force and No. 30 Southern Utah—New Mexico was able to do enough to let its regular-season credentials give them a shot at an NCAA bid.
“The men are on the bubble, [but] luckily we have an objective criteria,” Franklin said.
The criteria, which evaluates both teams’ performances at the regional meets and victories over other teams during the regular season, tentatively puts New Mexico as a one of the 31 teams to advance to the NCAA Championships.
Colorado (45 points) and Northern Arizona (68 points) both earned the two automatic bids, while BYU was third (121 points), Southern Utah fourth (128), Colorado State fifth (140) and UTEP sixth (156).
The NCAA Championships are next Saturday, November 22, at the LaVern Gibson Championship Cross Country Course in Terre Haute, Ind.