ALBUQUERQUE, N.M.— For the University of New Mexico cross country teams, the objective this weekend is simple: qualify for the NCAA Championships.
How each side goes about doing that as they take to the East Bay Golf Course at the NCAA Mountain Region Championships in Provo, Utah this Friday is where the goals differ.
The women enter the 6K race as the No. 1 team in the country behind a strong resume and a core group of runners that are among the best in the sport. Coming off of their 11th-straight Mountain West title two weeks ago, the women are competing for an 11th-consecutive berth at the national championships.
Given the short turnaround between the regional and the championship of just eight days, the goal is to qualify and maintain the health and stamina of the runners.
“Going into the Mountain Regionals, we are fit, healthy, prepared,” said head coach Joe Franklin. “This is the first round of the NCAA Tournament, so the goal is to not necessarily go out and win the race- it’s to do all you need to do to make it to the national championship.”
It’s about running in control, making sure you have two or three gears left, that you’re able to talk to your teammates. There will hopefully be no racing at the end… The whole goal is to get through this race. We are running the first race at elevation, other than the first meet of the year, so we’ll be at elevation and then we have to run eight days later combined with travel and school, and that’s a big deal.”
We have a shot to do very well. The women are really starting to get everything going in the right direction and fire on all cylinders.”
The women will face elite competition with nationally-ranked No. 4 Colorado, the only other team to be ranked No. 1 this season besides UNM, No. 9 BYU, No. 22 Southern Utah, No. 28 Northern Arizona, and Mountain West schools Air Force (RV), Utah State (RV), Nevada, Colorado State and Wyoming.
The men have some ground to make up as they enter the 10K race with a CCRI (Cross Country Rating Index) of 54 and ranked 10th in the latest Mountain Region USTFCCCA regional rankings. It will be the first time this season that the men will have a race distance of 10K after running 8K the last three races. UNM will be running against the No. 1 overall ranked team and defending champion Northern Arizona, as well as nationally-ranked No. 2 BYU, No. 8 Colorado and Mountain West schools No. 13 Air Force, No. 14 Colorado State, No. 18 Wyoming and RV Utah State.
“On the men’s side, the goal is to try to beat one of the really good teams that are going to make the NCAA Championships,” said Franklin. “The men are running very well; their gap is getting smaller.”
The Lobos have two men on the roster that ran in the regionals last season in Jonny Glen and Jared Garcia, with Glen coming off a team-high 22nd-place finish in the Mountain West Cross Country Championships almost two weeks ago.
There are two ways that the Lobos can qualify for the NCAA Championships, held on Nov. 17 in Madison, Wis. The first is to be among the top-two teams in their region in team score to earn the automatic bid. There are nine different regions running throughout the country, and each region receives two automatic qualifiers. For those teams that don’t finish among the top two, the other means to qualify is through an at-large bid, awarded to 13 teams by the NCAA Division I Cross Country Subcommittee who takes into account regional finish and regular-season competition and wins, bringing the total number of teams competing at the NCAA Championships to 31 for each gender.
However, individuals can qualify as well if they are not on a team that has qualified, as was the case last season with Josh Kerr. The committee selects the first four individuals from each region that finish within the top 25 and are not on a qualifying team. Additionally, two runners are selected from the remainder of the national pool, and also must have finished in the regional top 25, as at-large individuals.
In the 2017 NCAA Mountain Regionals, the women earned their 10th-consecutive berth at the NCAA Championships behind Ednah Kurgat’s individual win, followed by a third-place finish by Weini Kelati and fifth-place finish from Charlotte Prouse, as the team finished second overall for an automatic bid. The run of 10 straight NCAA Championship appearances qualified as the the sixth-longest active streak in Division I.
The New Mexico men placed eighth as a team, but as mentioned previously, were able to garner an individual at-large bid in Kerr after the Edinburgh, Scotland, native finished 15th.
The women’s race will begin the regional at 11 a.m. MT, followed by the men’s race at noon. The race will be covered by FloTrack, which will require a subscription, and can be followed through live stats.
COACH FRANKLIN PRESS CONFERENCE