Lobos Open Outdoor Season at UNM Spring Invitational Saturday

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. – New Mexico Track & Field looks to bust some rust as the Lobos open up their outdoor season at home on Saturday with the UNM Spring Invitational at the UNM Track & Field Complex.

Tomorrow’s action will be highlighted by 1500m races that will feature 2023 XC All-Americans Nicola Jansen on the women’s side and Evans Kiplagat on the men’s side. Kiplagat just concluded indoor season as a 5,000m USTFCCCA Second Team All-American in Boston – Jansen redshirted indoor season after qualifying for the XC National Championship race as an individual and finishing as an All-American.

Other 1500m competitors will include Luke Cunningham, Samuel Field, Vincent Chirchir, Elijah Stenberg and Kane Shields on the men’s side and Sophia McDonnell, Maleah Goldie, Mercy Kirarei, Gabriella K. Szabo and Camille Jackson for the women. Chirchir will be making his collegiate debut for the Lobos after joining the squad at the semester.

Saturday’s events kick off at 11 a.m. with the men’s 4 x 100m relay, with the final event of the day – the women’s 4 x 400m relay – slated for a 1:05 p.m. start. Follow @UNMLoboXCTF on Instagram and X for live coverage, meet day content and more.

A LOOK AT THE 2024 OUTDOOR SCHEDULE
For the weekend of March 29-30, two travel parties will be split across four meets – one group will head down to the Bay Area to compete in the Stanford Invitational (Palo Alto, Calif.), with the other in the Lone Star State for the Texas Relays (Dallas, Texas) and Bobcat Invitational (San Marcos, Texas).

Last season, of the six UNM Men’s and Women’s 5,000m times that ranked in the Top 100 in the west qualifying region, five were run at either the Stanford Invitational or Payton Jordan Invitational. Of UNM’s three women’s 10,000m times that ranked in the Top 10 in the west in 2023, all three were set at Stanford’s Cobb Track & Angell Field. This will be the third season in a row that the Lobos compete at both Stanford-hosted meets.

UNM returns to California again the next two weekends, competing at the Bryan Clay Invitational (April 10-13) and the Beach Invitational (April 12-13) before returning for the Mt. SAC Relays April 17-20.

The Don Kirby Tailwind Open, UNM’s second home meet of the season, is set for the following week on April 19.

The Lobos split up once again the following weekend between the Payton Jordan Invitational (April 26-27; Palo Alto, Calif.) and the Arizona Desert Heat Classic (April 27; Tucson, Ariz.).

Postseason competition begins with the Mountain West Outdoor Championships on May 10-11, hosted by Fresno State this year at Warmerdam Field. UNM finished third on the women’s side and fourth on the men’s side at MW Outdoor Championships in 2023, with six individual MW champions in total.

For each individual event contested at each of the Preliminary Round sites, the top 48 declared student-athletes and top 24 declared relay teams will be accepted into the competition, with the top 12 in each advancing to the NCAA Outdoor National Championships June 7-10. UNM had 20 athletes competing at West Prelims in 2023, with five of them returning this year – Victor Akhalu, Brodie Young, Ethan Brouw, Jonathan Carmin and Annamaria Leszczynska.

For runners that qualify, the 2024 NCAA outdoor track and field championships will be held at Hayward Field in Eugene, Ore. It will be the 19th time the outdoor championships have been hosted by Oregon.

2024 NEW MEXICO OUTDOOR TRACK & FIELD SCHEDULE

TURQUOISE & SILVER denote split-squad weekends grouped by meets.
CHERRY denotes home meets hosted at the UNM Track & Field Complex (Albuquerque, N.M.)