Samuel, Kosgei Finish as Runners-Up at NCAA Championships; Women Finish 7th, Men 9th

MADISON, Wisc. – Pamela Kosgei and Habtom Samuel both finished as individual runners-up Saturday morning — with Samuel doing so despite losing a shoe halfway through the race — as both New Mexico Men’s and Women’s Cross Country finished in the Top 10 at NCAA Championships in the same year for the first time in program history with ninth- and seventh-place finishes in the team score.

It’s the lowest combined placing between the two teams at NCAA Championships in program history, outpacing 2014 when the men finished 14th and the women finished third. Among 11 programs that qualified both men’s and women’s squads for nationals, UNM is one of just three that placed both teams in the Top 10 alongside BYU and Northern Arizona.

Five Lobos – three men and two women – secured Top-40 individual finishes for All-American honors, with Samuel and Kosgei joined by Mercy Kirarei (35th, 20:01.3) on the women’s side and Collins Kiprotich (35th, 29:22.6) and Evans Kiplagat (40th, 29:25.0) on the men’s side. It’s the second All-American cross country honors of Samuel and Kiplagat’s careers and the first time in program history with multiple UNM men and women finishing as All-Americans.

Kosgei finished second for the first time this season after succumbing to a closing surge from Alabama’s Doris Lemngole down the stretch, clocking a 19:27.8 time to anchor the Lobos’ 14th Top-10 finish in their last 14 NCAA Championship appearances. The true freshman went down to the wire with Florida’s Hilda Oleimomoi, with the two shoulder-to-shoulder until Kosgei pulled away with 100 meters to go to secure second place.

Behind her, Mercy Kirarei picked off four runners over the final 1,000 meters to finish 35th (20:01.3) — a 27-point score — and earn the first All-American honors of her collegiate career, while Klara Dess moved up five in the same span to finish 74th and add 56 points (20:25.5). Tilly Simpson ran a collegiate PR (20:39.8) to place 118th (90 points) and Tina Nisoli crossed in 20:44.0 to place 132nd and button up the scoring.

UNM finished with 244 points in the women’s team score, outpacing four teams ranked above them heading into this week – No. 5 Notre Dame, No. 6 Washington, No. 7 Alabama and No. 9 Georgetown.

Just making sure we all appreciate Pamela’s final push at the finish line yesterday to secure her runner-up finish 🙌

What an awesome finish for the freshman. pic.twitter.com/AeaKdz92oH

— New Mexico XC/T&F (@UNMLoboXCTF) November 24, 2024

Samuel finished as runner-up to Graham Blanks of Harvard for the second year in a row, but did so this time in much more dramatic fashion. The sophomore took a fall and lost a shoe halfway through the race and simply refused to quit in a remarkable display of grit, running the last five kilometers regardless while moving up from 11th at the 6K mark. As he crossed the finish line, he pumped his fist in the air before pointing to his bare (and bloodied) left foot. Even then, he was only 1.7 seconds behind Blanks — who he beat by seven seconds at the same course at Pre-Nationals earlier this season.

𝑨 𝒕𝒓𝒖𝒆 𝑳𝒐𝒃𝒐 𝒏𝒆𝒗𝒆𝒓 𝒒𝒖𝒊𝒕𝒔 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒇𝒊𝒈𝒉𝒕 🐺

And @HabtomSamuel31 is as true of a Lobo as one can be. #GoLobos | #WeAreNM pic.twitter.com/IMpfv12Dom

— New Mexico XC/T&F (@UNMLoboXCTF) November 23, 2024

“I thought ‘If I stop, the guys were running so fast… the gap would be more,’” Samuel said post-race. “So I said ‘Let me keep running barefoot’ — I did, and I’m so happy.”

It took a late kick from Blanks to keep him off the top of the podium as he fended off Furman’s Dylan Schubert to retake the second position with less than 100 meters to go and finish in 28:38.9. Samuel’s heroics made the Lobos’ Top-10 finish and 272-point total possible – had he dropped out and not scored his two points at the top of the scoreboard, the Lobos would’ve finished 16th with 427 points.

After the race, Samuel told the media that he had been “spiked” (struck by another runner’s sharp spikes on the bottom of their racing shoes), puncturing the shoe he was still wearing and knocking the other loose. Blood was visible on both feet when he crossed the finish line.

“Both my legs got spiked … I wish I had the spikes, because my plan before the race was to run the hills like crazy and keep to the straights and uphill before the finish line,” Samuel said. “Graham came with the same tactic and he did it.

“I tried to close the gap … it’s hard to run barefoot. I don’t feel anything and the ground feels so hard.”

“This guy’s 𝐭𝐨𝐮𝐠𝐡 𝐚𝐬 𝐧𝐚𝐢𝐥𝐬”

After racing to a runner-up finish without a shoe for half the race, Habtom Samuel chats with John Anderson about one of the grittiest finishes we’ve ever seen in an NCAA Championship race 🐺 pic.twitter.com/3ZU2Mtwy2z

— New Mexico XC/T&F (@UNMLoboXCTF) November 23, 2024

Behind Samuel, Collins Kiprotich held steady around the front the whole way to run a new 10K personal best (29:22.6) and garner All-American status in his first NCAA Championships with a 35th-place (32 points) finish, with Evans Kiplagat finishing 40th (29:25.0) to join Samuel as a repeat All-American. Samuel and Kiplagat are only the third and fourth men from New Mexico to even earn All-American honors in cross country twice — they’re the first to do it back-to-back in their first two seasons of competition.

Rikus van Niekerk nearly matched the personal best he set last week at Mountain Regionals (29:54.0) with a 29:54.5 time to finish 98th (82 points) and Vincent Chirchir closed the scoring in 148th (30:13.5).

The UNM men finished with 272 points to place ninth in the nation, breaking a program record for lowest men’s point total that has stood since 1966 (311 points). In their first team appearance since 2014 last season, they finished 18th with 465 points — this year, they shaved 193 points off of that.

HISTORICAL NOTES
– Samuel – who is now up to six All-American trophies in the last 12 months – is only the fourth man from New Mexico to finish as an XC All-American multiple times and the first since Abdirizak Ibrahim (2020, 2021).
– The Lobo men’s 272-point total stands as their lowest at NCAA Championships in program history.
– The women’s seventh-place finish is their 14th Top-10 team finish in as many NCAA Championship appearances – they’ve qualified for 16 of the last 17 NCAA Championships held, with 2023 being the only National championship they failed to qualify for as a team in that span.
– UNM has now had at least one woman finish as an All-American at NCAA’s 13 times in a row. Nicola Jansen did so as an individual qualifier in 2023 to keep the streak alive even when the Lobo women missed out on a team qualification.

TEAM SCORES (TOP 10 ONLY)

UNM FINISHERS