USTFCCCA RELEASE | TOP MARKS OF THE WEEK
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M.— The University of New Mexico women’s track and field team continues to make history in the 2018-19 season, the latest coming on Monday afternoon.
In the latest NCAA Division I Women’s Outdoor Track & Field National Rating Index released by the USTFCCCA, the Lobos were ranked fifth in the country, the first time in program history that UNM has been ranked in the top five.
The Lobos moved up four spots since last week’s release, collecting 189.63 points for an improvement of 16.08 points from week six.
Contributing to the jump in the poll was Weini Kelati’s performance in the Mountain West Outdoor Track and Field Championships, in which the sophomore ran a 32:09.10 to set the school and championship meet record in the 10,000-meters. Kelati won the race by 2:08.46 in just her second-ever collegiate race at that distance, breaking the championship record by more than 20 seconds, the school record by 6.63 seconds and improved on her 2018 championship time by 32.82 seconds. She also ran the fastest time on the week.
Heading in to the NCAA West Preliminaries, Kelati holds the second-fastest time in the West region and the third-fastest time overall in the NCAA among all runners.
In addition, Charlotte Prouse broke the MW championship meet record, recording the top time in the country for the week in the steeplechase at 9:47.43. Prouse won the event by 9.15 seconds and currently holds the third-best time in the NCAA to go along with Adva Cohen’s second-best time of 9:45.71.
UNM has the top three times in the 5000-meters in the West region and two of the top three times in both the steeplechase and the 10,000-meters. On the combined qualifying list, the Lobos are ranked first (Kelati), third (Cohen) and fourth (Ednah Kurgat) in the 5,000-meters; third (Kelati) and fourth (Kurgat) in the 10,000-meters and second (Cohen) and third (Prouse) in the steeplechase.
In the #EventSquad Rankings, New Mexico continued to have the top group in the 5,000-meters.
Up next for the UNM squad is the NCAA West Preliminaries held May 23-25 at Sacramento State. The list of student-athletes, by event, who have been accepted will be posted on the NCAA website on Thursday, May 16. Based on the descending-order list for the season, the top 48 declared entries for each event will compete at the two preliminary sites (East and West) for a spot at the NCAA Championships to be held June 5-8 in Austin, Texas.