2024 Lobo XC Schedule Released
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. – New Mexico Cross Country’s 2024 Schedule is now out to the public, highlighted by the return of collegiate competition to the Lobo Invitational for the first time since 2019 as well as races against nationally-ranked teams at the Oklahoma State Cowboy Jamboree (Sep. 28) and Wisconsin Pre-Nationals (Oct. 19).
This year’s slate features four regular season meets across eight weeks before Mountain West Championships in Colorado Springs, Colo. (Nov. 1) and NCAA Mountain Region Championships in Reno, Nev. (Nov. 15). Should either the men’s or women’s squad secure an automatic bid with a Top-2 finish at Regionals or hear their names called as an at-large selection, the Lobos will earn a return trip to Madison for the NCAA Championship race on Nov. 23.
Heading into Darren Gauson’s second year as head coach, UNM is looking to build on a resurgent year from the Lobo men that saw them finish 18th in the nation in their first MW title and NCAA Championship appearance as a team since 2014. All three of the Lobos’ XC All-Americans from last season – Habtom Samuel and Evans Kiplagat on the men’s side and Nicola Jansen on the women’s side – will be returning to lead a retooled roster that seeks to get both teams to NCAA’s in the same year for the first time in a decade.
The Lobos get the season underway in Las Cruces at the Lori Fitzgerald Open for the fourth year in a row on Aug. 31, with both men and women running at the 5K distance. Two weeks later, they’ll welcome collegiate cross country competition back to Albuquerque for the first time since 2019 at the Lobo Invitational on Sep. 14. Hosted at UNM’s North Golf Course, this year’s Lobo Invitational will feature men’s and women’s collegiate 5K races as well as high school and community races.
– Find more information on this year’s Lobo Invitational at GoLobos.com/LoboXCInvite.
The Lobos will close out the regular season slate with the two biggest regular-season meets of the year as the distance expands to 8K for the men and 6K for the women – first, they’ll head to Stillwater, Okla. for their first race against ranked competition at the OSU Cowboy Jamboree (Sep. 28) before getting a sneak peak of this year’s NCAA Championship course in Madison, Wisc. at Pre-Nationals (Oct. 19).
– The Lobos’ trip to Stillwater will be their first time running a regular-season race at Oklahoma State – they last competed on OSU’s Greiner Family Cross Country Course was at 2022 NCAA Championships, where the women finished as national runners-up.
– When UNM last ran on Wisconsin’s Zimmer Championship Course at the Nuttycombe Invitational in 2023, Habtom Samuel finished third overall and the Lobo men finished 14th in the team score, knocking off 10 teams ranked in the Top 30 entering the weekend and four that ranked in the Top 15. Nicola Jansen’s 21st-place finish led the way for the women, who finished 25th overall.
Postseason racing kicks off with the 2024 Mountain West XC Championships on Nov. 1, hosted by Air Force in Colorado Springs, Colo. The Lobos have won at least one men’s or women’s MW team title in each of the last 16 seasons dating back to 2008, winning their first men’s conference championship since 2014 last year to keep the streak alive after the women’s fourth-place finish snapped a run of 15 conference titles in a row.
– UNM athletes have won 15 individual MW titles since the conference’s inception, with seven of them in the last decade. In 2023, Samuel ran a championship record to become the first Lobo man to win an individual title since Luke Caldwell in 2012, later being named MW Athlete of the Year for his performance.
This year’s NCAA Mountain Regional Championships will be held at Washoe Golf Course in Reno, Nev. on Nov. 15, where Habtom Samuel will defend his individual Regional title from 2023 as both teams look to punch their ticket to nationals with a Top-2 finish or at least solidify their case for an at-large bid with a convincing performance. For the men, the race distance expands again to 10K for both NCAA Regionals and NCAA Championships, with women still running 6K.
Should the Lobos secure a trip to NCAA Championships, they’ll return to Zimmer Championship Course in Madison one last time for the biggest race of them all on Nov. 23. UNM has qualified both the men and women for NCAA’s as a team in the same year only six times in program history, most recently in 2014. 2014 was also the last time that the Lobo men qualified for nationals in back-to-back years.
– The last time that NCAA XC Championships were held in Madison in 2018, the Lobo women finished as national runners-up, with Weini Kelati finishing as a national runner-up individually.