COLLEGE STATION, Texas — He may be young, but it’s quickly becoming clear that you can’t count out Josh Kerr.
Kerr, a redshirt freshman for the University of New Mexico track & field team, advanced to the finals of the men’s mile run after placing third overall in the preliminary round during the first day of the 2017 NCAA Division I Indoor Track and Field Championships.
Kerr’s stalwart effort highlighted a strong day of performances from the Lobos on Friday at Gilliam Indoor Stadium, as New Mexico also earned top-10 finishes from Alice Wright and its distance medley relay team.
The Lobos, who sent four individuals and relay team to the NCAAs, kicked off the first day of the two-day championships with the prelims of the mile, earning a big race from their star freshman.
Kerr opened his heat of the mile up near the front of the eight-runner pack, vying with Colorado’s Zach Perrin and Ben Saarel through 1000 meters. Kerr then scooted past Perrin with three laps left and edged Saarel for the win on the bell lap, splitting 28.36 seconds over the final 200 meters.
Kerr finished with a time of 3 minutes, 59.90 seconds, his third sub-four minute mile of the year.
He becomes the first Lobo man to advance to the mile finals since Lee Emanuel in 2010, when Emanuel won his second straight national title in the mile.
Kerr’s finals berth comes on the heels of winning the Mountain West title in the mile last month. He is just the second Lobo (along with Emanuel) and just the sixth MW athlete to ever win the league mile title and qualify to the finals of the mile at the NCAA Championships in the same year.
In the women’s mile prelims, Sophie Connor capped her Lobo career, running to 15th place with a time of 4:45.36. After a strong start through the first half mile, Connor couldn’t maintain her pace over the final three laps.
In the two event finals that UNM competed in Friday, Alice Wright ran to ninth place in the 5,000-meter run and the men’s distance medley relay took 10th.
For Wright, she placed ninth via a new indoor personal-record time of 15:56.24. She started the race near the back of the 16-athlete field, sitting in 13th place for the first 3000 meters. However, during the fourth kilometer of the race, Wright moved up a few slots, running up to ninth place with a kilometer remaining.
She finished with the second-best time in program history and is the second-highest NCAA finisher in the indoor 5K in program history. Only Sarah Waldron (eighth place, 2012) has placed higher.
In the DMR, Elmar Engholm, Mark Haywood, Kristian Hansen Uldbjerg and Graham Thomas combined for a 10th-place clocking of 9:46.87.
Engholm got the foursome off to a good start, running a split of 2:58.71 over the 1200-meter leg to put UNM in sixth place. Haywood followed with a 400-meter split of 49.23, with Hansen chipping in a split of 1:50.48 over his 800-meter leg. Thomas anchored the squad with a 1600-meter split of 4:08.46.
The relay’s time is good for the 10th-fastest in program history. Engholm, Haywood, Hansen and Kerr combined to set the UNM record at 9:30.07 in a win at the MW Championships last month.
New Mexico will conclude action at the NCAA Championships tomorrow with Jannell Hadnot in the triple jump at 2:30 p.m. MT and Kerr in the mile finals at 3:10 p.m. MT.
Live results will be available on FlashResults.com and the meet will be streamed live on ESPN3 starting at 2:55 p.m. MT.
Fans can follow the Lobos on Twitter (@lobo_track) and Instagram (@lobo_xc_tf) for information and updates on the team!