POLL WATCHING
The Lobo women enter the meet ranked No. 26 nationally and sixth in the Mountain Region, with the men receiving votes in the national poll for the first time since 2014 and moving up to No. 4 in the region following Griak.
The Lobo women have won 15 straight Mountain West titles and finished as runners-up at the NCAA XC Championship race last year, extending their streak of top-10 national finishes to 12 consecutive years.
Samuel is ranked No. 1 in FloTrack’s individual men’s rankings, with Lukas Kiprop (No. 15) and Evans Kiplagat (No. 34) both cracking the Top 35. In the women’s rankings, Jansen is No. 8 in the nation. In the outlet’s team rankings, the UNM men are No. 8 in the nation with the women sitting at No. 15.
LAST TIME OUT
In his collegiate debut, Samuel put down the fastest winning time at Griak since 2011 – when Lawi Lalang of Arizona finished in 23:15.5 – in beating second-place finisher Wil Smith of Gonzaga by 24 seconds to become UNM’s first-ever Griak champ. His time ranks as the second-fastest in the event’s 37-year history.
Samuel remained in position for the top spot the entire race along with fellow Top-5 finishers Lukas Kiprop (3rd, 24:02.5) and Evans Kiplagat (5th, 24:14.1), holding on to the No. 1 spot for the final 3 kilometers as he built a commanding lead on the rest of the field.
UNM – at that point ranked No. 9 in the Mountain Region – finished third behind Cal Baptist and Gonzaga in the team score, outracing No. 9 Portland as well as three Mountain West foes in Boise State, Colorado State and Wyoming. UNM jumped up to No. 6 in the Mountain Region in the next week’s updated rankings, moving up to No. 4 the following week despite not competing.
In the women’s race, Jansen pushed individual champion Greta Karinauskaite of Cal Baptist – the national runner-up in steeplechase at NCAA Outdoor National Championships in June – all the way to the finish, finishing three seconds behind for second place. She crossed the finish line in 20:30.6.
The Bradley transfer finished nearly 19 seconds ahead of the next closest finisher (20:49.0) to help anchor a sixth-place finish for the Lobos in the team total.
A BIT OF HISTORY
In the early 2000’s with a significant donation from Badger alum, Thomas Zimmer, the University of Wisconsin built a permanent standalone cross country course consisting of rolling hills and switchbacks – to help spectators enjoy the competition – paired with lush, green grass suitable for fast times. Over a decade later, the Nuttycombe Wisconsin Invitational Presented by Under Armour has established itself as one of the nation’s premier collegiate meets.
Annually, at least half of the USTFCCCA ranked teams attend Nuttycombe – in large part, the meet has become almost necessary to secure NCAA at-large qualifying points. In 2021, there were 19 ranked women’s teams out of the 36 teams in attendance with 18 of the 34 men’s teams nationally ranked. In each season that it was held, no less than 10 of the teams selected to the NCAA Championship competed at the Nuttycombe earlier in the year.
“There is a lot of hype surrounding it, for better or worse,” said Wisconsin Coach Mick Byrne back in 2015. “From a spectators’ point of view and marketing our sport, it’s fantastic. People are talking about it on social media, the national rankings are bound to change and it has really taken on this whole persona of its own.
“One of the best things about this meet is that people understand head-to-head competition. Every coach is going to run a full team and race hard. There is no hiding out there.”
In fact, the Nuttycombe has been the most vital predictor of NCAA Championship success of any meet in the country. In the past, both team winners went on to victory at the NCAA meet and even individual winners of the Nuttycombe have gone on to win NCAA titles. The Nuttycombe women’s champion has gone on to finish in the Top Two at NCAA Championships eight times since 2009, with the men’s champions doing so seven times in the same span. No Nuttycombe champion on either the men’s or women’s side have finished lower than 15th in the nation to end the season.
The UNM women have won Nuttycombe four times, first in 2015 and 2017 – years the Lobos went on to win an NCAA Championship – as well as 2021 and 2022, when they went on to finish third and second, respectively.
HABTOM’S COMING-OUT PARTY
Friday’s race is the first outing for Habtom Samuel since his dominant first-place finish by more than 24 seconds at Griak catapulted him into the national spotlight as a contender for an NCAA Individual Championship in November. Currently ranked as the No. 1 individual in the nation by Fl9Track, he’ll get a chance to race against fellow highly-touted individuals like NAU’s Nico Young (No. 2 in FloTrack’s individual rankings) and Drew Bosley (No. 4) as well as Harvard’s Graham Blanks (No. 6).
Eight individual champions at Nuttycome have been crowned NCAA champions one month later: Lawi Lalang (2011), Justyn Knight (2017), Morgan McDonald (2018) and Edwin Kurgat (2019) in the men’s race; Sheila Reid (2011), Abbey D’Agostino (2013), Ednah Kurgat (2017) and Katelyn Tuohy (2022) in the women’s race.
FOLLOW THE ACTION
Live results for both races will be available via the 2023 Cross Country schedule page on GoLobos.com, with live streaming available via RunnerSpace. Follow @UNMLoboTFXC on Instagram and @UNMLoboXCTF on X for live coverage, race content and more.
