Pamela Kosgei Named MW Freshman & Athlete of the Week
After a dominant run in her collegiate debut last week in Stillwater, New Mexico’s Pamela Kosgei has been named Mountain West Freshman & Athlete of the Week, the league announced Tuesday. It’s the first cross country conference weekly award of the season won by a UNM athlete.
One of the most highly-touted international recruits to come to UNM in recent memory, the Kenyan national solidified her place in the national conversation in her first cross country race as a Lobo with a runaway victory to lead UNM to a women’s team title at the OSU Cowboy Jamboree. Her winning time of 19:50.0 was 43.5 seconds faster than the next finisher as she led a Lobo Top 7 that all packed into the overall Top 20 to beat out No. 16 Oklahoma State in the team score with 34 points to the Cowgirls’ 40. The UNM women moved up four spots to No. 17 in the USTFCCCA National Coaches’ Poll the following week as a result.
Kosgei took the lead just over a kilometer into the race and didn’t relinquish it the rest of the way, posting 3:17.5 and 3:13.8 splits over her final two kilometers — her time was the 10th-fastest 6K time ever ran by a woman on OSU’s Greiner Cross Country Course and fastest there since NCAA Championships in 2022.
RANKINGS UPDATE
In the USTFCCCA’s Week Three National & Regional rankings, the Lobo men remained at No. 8 for the fourth consecutive poll dating back to the preseason, with the women holding steady at No. 17 after moving up from No. 21 the week prior. UNM moved up to No. 2 on the men’s side in the Mountain Region rankings to match highest regional rank in program history for the first time since 2010 — they’ve only been ranked No. 2 in the Mountain region in three USTFCCCA polls in program history. The UNM women remained at No. 4 in the Mountain region as well.
UP NEXT
The Lobos get another week off before they head to Madison, Wisc. this week to get a preview of this year’s NCAA Championship Course against even more nationally-ranked competition at Wisconsin Pre-Nationals on Oct 19.