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 runner-ups Saturday morning 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 — 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. 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.

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, running the last five kilometers regardless while moving up from 11th at the 6K mark. 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.

“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

This story will be updated.

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