ALBUQUERQUE , N.M.— With the regular-season races complete, it is now go time for the University of New Mexico cross country teams.
The third-ranked University of New Mexico women’s cross country team looks to win its 11th-straight Mountain West Championship this Friday, Oct. 26 when it takes to Balboa Park in San Diego, Calif., while the men look to improve on last year’s result.
UNM women will run a 6K at 10 a.m. MT followed by the men’s 8K at 10:45 a.m. The races can be streamed on FloTrack, with a subscription, or tracked through the live results found here.
The women’s team returns almost all of the members from last season’s race and was selected as the pre-championship favorites by the conference coaches with seven first-place votes as announced on Wednesday.
Junior Ednah Kurgat, named the 2017 Mountain West Athlete of the Year, won the 2017 individual title with a time of 19:58.77 to lead the Lobos to the team title, while Weini Kelati and Charlotte earned all-conference with their second- and third- place finishes, respectively. Sophie Eckel (11th) and Alex Buck (12th) were second-team all-Mountain West recipients.
Last year, the Lobos took the title with 22 points, which was the fewest in the low-score-wins format of cross country since posting a 20-point win in 2010.
Kelati, the 2017 Mountain West Freshman of the Year, finished runner-up in her first MW championship race at 20:11.63 and Prouse completed the 6K race in 20:14.67 to take third. In her final MW championship race, Alice Wright made it four Lobos in the top-five with a fifth-place finish of 20:54.87. Sophie Eckel ran 21:19.75 to place 11th overall to complete the team scoring and Alex Buck was one behind her in 12th with her time of 21:20.58.
Boise State finished second in the team’s standings with 50 points.
Head coach Joe Franklin earned his ninth MW Coach of the Year honor as well, making UNM the first team to sweep Athlete, Freshman and Coach of the Year since Colorado State in 2007.
On the men’s side, Jared Garcia, Jonny Glen and Michael Wilson return to the championship race for the Lobos. Of the returners, Garcia was the top-finisher at 25th, followed by Glen (33rd) and Wilson (59th). Last season, UNM finished fifth in the team standings with 97 points, led by Josh Kerr’s seventh-place finish.
The Mountain West features three ranked women’s teams and one receiving votes, including No. 2 Boise State, No. 3 New Mexico and No. 27 Utah State, as well as RV Air Force. There are four ranked men’s teams and one receiving votes in No. 8 Boise State, No. 13th Wyoming, No. 16 Air Force, No. 17 Colorado State and RV Utah State.
Colorado State enters Friday’s race as the defending team champion but Boise State won the year prior, with both schools producing the individual champion in the years they won. The Lobo men last won the team title in 2014, which marked their sixth-straight conference championship at the time.
The Lobo women are coming off of a first-place finish in the “White” race at the Wisconsin Pre-Nationals, where Kelati and Kurgat went first and second in the race and Kelati won by a margin of over 12 seconds for the white individual title. The men finished 12th in the team standings of the “White” race, with Toby Cooke as the top finisher for the Lobos with a time of 24:28.32 to place 38th.