ALBUQUERQUE, N.M.— The University of New Mexico cross country teams will be back on the course on Friday, Oct. 4 at the 64th Annual 201Joe Piane – Notre Dame Invitational in just the second meet of the season, and it is bound to be a challenging field for the Lobos.
Ranked tied for second in the latest USTFCCCA national poll released Tuesday, the Lobo women will go toe-to-toe with 10 ranked teams, including four ranked in the top-10. The Lobo men will compete against 12 ranked teams, including three ranked in the top-10.
The Lobos will field familiar faces in the lineup for the race, including 2018 NCAA runner-up Weini Kelati, Ednah Kurgat and Hannah Nuttall, as well as Juanita Johnson, Carisma Lovato, Alondra Negrón Texidor, Brenda Rosales-Coria and Alexandra Harris. In the men’s race, UNM will run William Fuller, Toby Cooke, Iolo Hughes, Jared Garcia, Reece Donihi, Kristian Uldbjerg Hansen, Nehemiah Cionelo and Max Wharton.
There will be three divisions for each gender with a Blue Division, a Gold Division and an Open Division. The races for the women will have a distance of 5,000-meters while the men will run five miles. Both the Lobo men and women were selected for the Blue Division with the women to lead off the meet at 11 a.m. MT and the men to follow at 11:45 a.m. MT.
Among the 23 teams scheduled to run in the women’s Blue Division at the Burke Golf Course at the University of Notre Dame are No. 1 Colorado, No. 6 Washington, No. 7 Michigan, No. 8 NC State, No. 12 Notre Dame, No. 14 Ole Miss, No. 16 Iowa State, No. 17 Florida State, No. 25 Boston College and No. 29 Minnesota. Utah, Indiana and Purdue are also entered in the Blue Division and were receiving votes in the latest USTFCCCA national poll. Additionally, Mountain West school Colorado State is grouped in the blue group.
The men will run in the Blue Division against 22 other schools including 12 ranked schools in No. 4 Colorado, No. 9 Notre Dame, No. 10 Wisconsin, No. 13 Colorado State, No. 14 Ole Miss, No. 15 NC State, No. 16 Michigan, No. 18 Wyoming, No. 19 Indiana, No. 21 Purdue, No. 26 Eastern Kentucky and No. 29 Alabama. Also entered in the race is Southern Utah and Florida State, with both teams receiving votes in the latest USTFCCCA national poll.
UNM will also have four women running in the Open Division race in Johanna Briscoe, Steffi Jones, Mackenze Everett and Grace Williams.
Friday’s race will mark the 11th time that New Mexico will compete at Notre Dame, having made an appearance at the race from 2008-2017. The women have twice won the team race and have had two individual winners, while the highest finish for the men was second in 2010 with one individual winner.
In their last race at Notre Dame in 2017, the Lobo women placed second in the Blue Division team standings with 51 points, four behind Colorado. However, the Lobos had the top-two finishers with Kurgat winning in 16:01.8 in her first race as a Lobo, which also marked the fastest time in the history of the women’s race at the Notre Dame Invitational, followed by Alice Wright in 16:12.0. Kelati placed sixth in the race with 16:23.9 as a freshman with the Lobos ultimately having four runners in the top eight with Charlotte Prouse finishing eighth (16:33.0). The Lobos last won the event in 2015 with 29 points, led by a runner-up finish by Courtney Frerichs and placed four in the top six.
Live results will be available HERE with a recap following the completion of the race.