SEATTLE – Set for its first competition after the holiday break, New Mexico’s women’s track and field team will compete on Saturday at the University of Washington Indoor Preview in Seattle.
The Lobos are sending six women to compete in the mile, which is scheduled for 10:50 a.m. Pacific/11:50 a.m. Mountain time on Saturday morning. Live video will be available online here and live results will be available online here.
UNM’s distance crew of Stefanie Parsons, Samree Dishon, Gracelyn Larkin, Elise Thorner, Samantha Valentine, and Abigail Goldstein who will run unattached, will kick off the new year for the Lobos.
Parsons, who is coming off a PR in the 3,000 meters on Dec. 3 with a time of 9:16.20 minutes at the Sharon Colyear Danville Season Opener, will look for similar success in another one of her marquee events. Parsons holds a PR of 4:46.98 minutes in the mile, which she ran a year ago at the New Mexico Team Open. She is a two-time Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference champion in the event, winning the title in 2018 and 2020 during her career at NCAA DII Edinboro.
Also coming off a PR in Boston in the 3,000, Thorner enters Saturday’s race with a PR of 4:43.01 minutes in the mile. That mark came at the JDL DMR Invitational last February, a week before she won the Mountain West Championship title in the race with a time of 4:46.20 minutes.
Larkin figures to be right on pace as well, entering the meet with PR of 4:48.85 minutes in the mile. Her best-ever time came at last year’s New Mexico Team Open, where she placed fifth. Dishon meanwhile holds a PR of 4:51.78 minutes in the mile, which she posted last February on her way to a fourth-place finish at the Mountain West Indoor Championships. Dishon is coming off a personal-best 5,000-meters time of 15:54.27 minutes at the Colyear Danville Season Opener last month.
Also contributing to a strong season-opening meet for the Lobos last month was Valentine, who notched a PR in the 3,000-meters of 9:27.52 minutes. She takes a mile PR time of 4:54.58 minutes into Saturday’s race, with her best mark coming during her freshman year at Brown University in January of 2018.
Although Goldstein’s marks during the indoor season won’t count among her ledger or the team’s scores, she holds the top mile time on the squad at 4:35.70 minutes. That performance came during her career at Harvard, when she took seventh at the 2020 David Hemery Valentine Invitational.
MEANWHILE DOWN UNDER: Competing in her home country of Australia over the winter, UNM distance star Amelia Mazza-Downie has had a busy and productive competition schedule thus far. On Dec. 15 she placed fourth among a field of 13 runners at the Zatopek Women’s 10,000-meters, posting a time of 32:45.70 minutes. The mark was nearly 10 full seconds faster than her collegiate best time of 32:55.26 minutes. The Lobo junior will be at it again this weekend, set to compete in the 10,000-meters at the Australian World Cross Country Championships Trials on Sunday morning. Mazza-Downie’s race will be at approximately 1:35 p.m. Mountain time on Saturday (7:35 a.m. Sunday morning in Australia). The event will be streamed live on the Athletics Australia YouTube channel online here.