2015 & 2017 NCAA TEAM CHAMPIONS

Behind one of the most dominating performances in NCAA history, the No. 1 University of New Mexico women’s cross country team won its first national title on Nov. 15, 2015, at the NCAA Division I Cross Country Championships in Louisville, Ky.

The Lobo women, competing in their 10th-ever NCAA Championship, placed all five of their scorers in the top 25 at E.P. ‘Tom’ Sawyer State Park in Louisville and combined to score 49 points, the lowest team score by any team since 1982.

“It’s a great day,” New Mexico head coach Joe Franklin said. “Super excited for the women. They’re going to remember this for the rest of their lives, and that’s really special.”

The Lobos’ championship is the second NCAA title in University of New Mexico history, joining the New Mexico skiing team’s NCAA title in 2004. It’s the fourth NCAA women’s cross country title in Mountain West history.

“It’s amazing,” senior Courtney Frerichs said after the race.

Long deemed the prohibitive favorite after assembling its talented squad of runners, the Lobos lived up to their reputation, running through the 31-team field to an 80-point victory over runner-up Colorado.

New Mexico’s margin of victory is the fifth-largest in NCAA history and the best since 2004. No. 2 Colorado finished with 149 points, while No. 5 Oregon was third with 214 points.

It’s the second straight top-three finish for the Lobos, who placed third last year in an upstart and portentous performance.

Frerichs led UNM over the women’s six-kilometer course, placing fourth overall in 19 minutes, 48 seconds. The Lobos’ top runner at four of the five meets they ran in 2015, her finish is the best in program history, besting Sammy Silva’s 12th-place finish from 2013.

Alice Wright wasn’t far behind Frerichs, finishing fifth overall in 19:53.1. In fact, the Lobos finished with a team spread of 29.5 seconds, the lowest since the NCAA moved the distance of the championship race to six kilometers in 2000.

Rhona Auckland finished 13th overall in 20:07.1, with Calli Thackery (15th, time of 20:07.3) and Molly Renfer (24th, 20:17.5) also scoring for the Lobos.

All five earned All-American honors (which are given to the top 40 finishers), making them the first women’s team to have five All-Americans in a single championship since Villanova in 2009.

New Mexico is also just the first team since the 2001 BYU women to place all five of their scorers in the top 25. Heleene Tambet (74th, 20:40.4) and Whitney Thornburg (109th, 20:55.4) rounded out the New Mexico contingent.

“Everyone played a role,” Frerichs said. “Rhona got to the outside for us which helped through the bumps. Molly got out front. Everyone did an amazing job. We couldn’t have done it without each other.”

The Lobos were in second place 2,000 meters into the race on a windy and chilly Saturday. UNM trailed Oregon by 91 points for first place a third of the way through the race.

Although all five scorers were in the top 50 through 2 kilometers, New Mexico fought back as the race progressed, eventually moving up as a team en route to the win.

“We thought that they could score well, but you never know when you get out there,” Franklin said. “You look at the 2K splits, and we were way back, but they kept plugging and plugging and plugging.”

But, for a New Mexico team that went in without any expectations, they came away with their first national title.

For the second time in three years, the Lobo women’s cross country team won the national title at the NCAA Division I Cross Country Championships in Louisville, relying on a dominant performance by individual winner Ednah Kurgat for its second team title ever.

Behind Kurgat’s meet-record victory over the six-kilometer course at E.P. ‘Tom’ Sawyer State Park, the second-ranked UNM women placed four scorers in the top 15 en route to becoming the ninth team in NCAA history to win multiple national titles in women’s cross country.

The Lobos’ championship was the third NCAA title in University of New Mexico history, joining their win in 2015 and the New Mexico skiing program’s NCAA title in 2004. It’s the fifth NCAA women’s cross country title in Mountain West history.

It was also the team’s eighth-straight top-10 performance at the NCAA Championships — the longest active streak in NCAA history — and the team’s third top-three showing in the last four years, joining 2014’s third-place finish in Terre Haute, Indiana.

But it was a new cast of runners hoisting the championship trophy after the race, led by an undefeated Kurgat.

“This win was different than 2015,” Franklin said. “This team was a lot different. They’ve been running well all year.”

Kurgat continued her remarkable season, capturing the team’s first individual title in cross country with a time of 19 minutes, 19.42 seconds.

Winning for the fifth time this season in as many tries, Kurgat ran up near the front of the 255-runner field from virtually the start, eventually taking over about two kilometers in. Washington’s Amy-Eloise Neale was second in 19:26.93.

Kurgat’s time was the fastest in championship history since the NCAA moved the race distance up from 5,000 meters in 2000. She also recorded the largest margin of victory, 7.51 seconds, since 2014.

“I was so excited,” Kurgat said. “I don’t take anything for granted. My challenges were behind me. They all act as a stepping stone to where I am today.”

However, as it’s been all season, Kurgat was quickly joined at the finish line by her teammates, with three other Lobos finishing in the top 15.

Weini Kelati placed seventh overall with a time of 19:35.77, while Charlotte Prouse took 12th (19:48.93) and Alice Wright finished 14th (19:49.73).

All four earned All-American honors (which were given to the top 40 finishers), giving the team 18 All-American plaudits since their streak of top-10 team finishes started in 2010.

For Wright, she earned her fourth career All-American nod in cross country, becoming the first female runner in Division I to earn the honor in four straight years since Colorado’s Shalaya Kipp (2010-13). Since the current criteria for All-American status was implemented in 2008, Wright was just the fifth female athlete to accomplish the feat.

But, facing a field where every second and every place counted, New Mexico’s title hopes relied significantly on the performance of its No. 5 runner.

Alondra Negrón Texidor didn’t let her team down, scoring via her 85th-place time of 20:36.67. Close behind were Alex Buck (105th place, time of 20:44.88) and Kieran Casey (123rd, 20:54.21).

“I got asked a question the other day who our fifth [runner] would be, and I didn’t have any idea,” Franklin said. “Alondra, Alex, and Kieran all ran well.”

As a team, UNM tallied 90 points, besting No. 3 San Francisco (105 points) and No. 1 Colorado (139) in the low-score-wins format.

Like in 2015 when they scored 49 points, the Lobos finished with a team score below 100 points. The score on Saturday was just the third under 100 points since 2010. (Michigan State had
85 in 2014.)