USTFCCCA RELEASE
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M.— Sophomore Weini Kelati has been named the Mountain Region Women’s Track Athlete of the Year as announced by the USTFCCCA on Friday.
Kelati earns the honor after a stellar indoor track season in which the Virginia native set two school records, won two Mountain West Female Track Athlete of the Week honors, qualified for the NCAA Indoor Track and Field Championships in three events (although she will only be competing in two), was a two-time all-conference selection, and was the MW champion in the mile.
The distance runner opened up the indoor season running the second-fastest time in the NCAA in the 5000-meter run this season, second only to teammate Ednah Kurgat, at the Boston University Sharon Colyear-Danville Season Opener in December, posting a time of 15:15.24, a personal best. Her time was the fifth-fastest time recorded in NCAA history.
In the second meet of the season that she competed in, the New Mexico Collegiate Team Invitational on Jan. 26, she then broke the school record in the mile after running a 4:39.43 (4:33.35 altitude conversion) to earn the event win by 8.28 seconds over the next finisher. Her time was 0.13 seconds faster than the previous record set by Sammy Silva on Feb. 14, 2015. She would later go on to improve that time at the Mountain West Championships, where she ran a 4:42.26 in the mile preliminaries to set the MW meet record and improved on that time in the final by 4.51 seconds to win the event in 4:37.75. With an altitude converted time of 4:31.70, Kelati broke her own school record in the race by 1.64 seconds.
On Feb. 9, Kelati set another school record, this time on the national stage at the 112th Millrose Games, finishing the 3000-meter in 8:53.98 to produce the fastest time in UNM program history in the event, beating out current Lobo Ednah Kurgat’s time of 8:57.47 by 3.49 seconds.
Kelati collected many accolades throughout the season, being named the Mountain West Female Track Athlete of the Week on Jan. 29 and Feb. 12, both times coming after setting a school record.
Most recently, Kelati earned two all-conference honors for her win in the mile and her role in the women’s DMR that finished second at the conference meet.
Earlier this week, Kelati was officially confirmed as qualifying for the NCAA Championships in the 3000-meter and the 5000-meter after having the second-best time in the 5000 and the third-best time in the 3000 this season. Kelati also would have qualified for the mile with the third-fastest time, but scratched from the event.
The regional athlete of the year award is the second this academic year for Kelati, who was also selected for the award in cross country.
Kurgat was named the Mountain Region athlete of the year last indoor season, marking the second year in-a-row that a Lobo on the women’s team has earned the honor.
As mentioned earlier, Kelati will close her indoor season at the NCAA Championships, where she will be competing in two events. The championship meet is set to begin on March 8 and conclude on March 9 in Birmingham, Ala., and will be streamed on ESPN3.