Women’s Results | Men’s Results
NOTRE DAME, Ind. — In the program’s first real meet of the 2016 season, the New Mexico women’s cross country team placed fourth overall at the Joe Piane Notre Dame Invitational Friday afternoon, while the Lobo men’s team placed 23rd.
The Lobo women were paced by top-five finishers Alice Wright (second place) and Calli Thackery (fifth) as they ran to another top-five performance at Notre Dame, including back-to-back titles in 2014 and 2015.
The youthful New Mexico men also posted a promising showing as their young runners got their first taste of high-level NCAA action.
The Notre Dame Invitational shaped up to be on the top regular-season meets of the season, and certainly lived up to its billing as five top-25 teams toed the line in both the men’s and women’s races at the Burke Golf Course in Notre Dame, Indiana.
The Lobo women, looking to defend their NCAA team title from 2015, had a tough field lined up against them, as No. 1 Providence and No. 5 North Carolina State, among others, looked to pick up wins now that teams can start building credentials for the NCAA Championships in November.
And while the women’s streak of titles at Notre Dame was halted, the second-ranked women received some tremendous races by Wright and Thackery.
Wright, a redshirt junior, crossed the line in 16 minutes, 16 seconds, just 4.3 seconds behind individual titlist Anna Rohrer of host Notre Dame. Wright’s runner-up finish is the second in a row for UNM at the Notre Dame Invite, following Courtney Frerichs’ second-place race last season.
Thackery, a senior, also registered a superb mark, traversing the women’s five-kilometer course in 16:30.9.
Both continued a trend of yearly improvement at Notre Dame. Wright has moved up from moved up to second after placing fifth last year and eighth in 2014. Thackery was ninth in 2014, sixth in 2015 and now fifth in 2016.
The Lobos’ also earned scoring runs from senior Sophie Connor, who placed 37th in 16:59.8, and freshman Alex Buck (60h, 17:16.5) and Natasha Bernal (62nd, 17:17.3).
Connor was 67th at this meet last year, and showed potential as a key player for UNM, which is without 2015 All-Americans Rhona Auckland and Ednah Kurgat.
Kathryn Fluehr (71st, 17:23.1), Kendall Kelly (93rd, 17:41.0) and Kieran Casey (96th, 17:41.7) also ran for New Mexico.
The Lobos opened the race in fifth place through one kilometer, with Wright and Thackery sitting first and third, respectively. UNM moved up to third with 165 points through four kilometers behind Wright (third) and Thackery (fifth), but a late Eastern Michigan surge bumped the Lobos down a notch at the line.
Overall, the UNM women tallied 166 points, just eight points from third place. Providence, the team that knocked the Lobos from No. 1 earlier this week, won with 117 points.
North Carolina (second, 149 points), Eastern Michigan (third, 159 points) and Baylor (fifth, 169 points) rounded out the top five.
On the men’s side, the Lobos’ youth proved to be a significant factor en route to finishing 23rd..
With senior frontrunner Graham Thomas sidelined by illness, New Mexico had to rely on a lineup that featured four freshmen. And while the youthful team finished in 23rd place, the Lobos showed flashes of talent.
True freshman Jacob Simonsen led the way with a 72nd-place run clocked at 24:41.7. He was followed by senior Jesus Mendoza in 105th place (24:57.2).
Redshirt junior Zac Castillo also scored in 136th place (25:19.6), with freshmen Emil Danielsson (141st, 25:22.9) and Jared Garcia (153rd, 25:33.8) also chipping in scoring finishes.
Alexander Palm (180th, 26:06.8) and Tyler Valdez (188th, 26:16.3) also ran for the New Mexico men.
New Mexico started the race in solid position, sitting in 13th place through a kilometer as four runners were situated between 50th and 70th place. The men slipped to 17th with one kilometer left before placing 23rd at the end.
The Lobo men totalled 575 points, just eight points from 21st place and 19 points from the top 20.
Mississippi won with 83 points, with UTEP (99 points) and Eastern Kentucky (168 points) filling out the rest of the top three.
The Lobos return to action in two weeks, when they’ll travel to the Nuttycombe Wisconsin Invitational in their final meet before the championship season.