Lobos Open Indoor Track Season in Boston Saturday

Two weeks after a successful showing at NCAA Cross Country Championships on Nov. 23, New Mexico’s distance runners will head to Boston for their annual season-opening meet at BU – their first opportunity to record some solid times before a monthlong hiatus for winter break.

17 Lobos – 10 women and seven men – will compete at the Sharon Colyear-Danville Season Opener on Saturday, with four making their collegiate track debuts. NCAA Runner-Up Pamela Kosgei and First Team All-American Collins Kiprotich are registered for the fastest races of the day in the 5,000m and 3,000m and will look to build off strong showings at nationals in their first collegiate indoor meets, with fellow freshmen Judy Rono and Will Pardue both representing New Mexico for the first time after not competing in cross this fall.

Colyear-Danville has become known for hosting some of the best collegiate runners in the nation every year in December, with especially competitive fields in this year’s 3,000m and 5,000m. Six of the top-10 performances in the men’s 5000 meters were clocked at this meet over the years, as have four in the women’s 5k, plus three each in the men’s and women’s 3k.

Six of the Top 10 all-time performances in the men’s 5000 meters were clocked at this meet over the years, as have four in the women’s 5k, plus three each in the men’s and women’s 3k.

At the conclusion of the indoor regular season in 2024, 67% of the Top 10 times in the nation in the men’s and women’s 3,000m and 5,000m were ran on Boston University’s track, including all of the Top 10 men’s 5,000m times and eight of the top 10 women’s 3,000m times.

With the pace set for collegiate records in all four top heats across men and women, three Lobos will be competing in the fastest heats of the night in the 5,000m and 3,000m and running for an early NCAA Championship qualifying time.

🚨 SOUND THE ALARM 🚨

Men’s 3000m – 7:36.42
Men’s 5000m – 12:57.14
Women’s 3000m – 8:35.20
Women’s 5000m – 14:52.79

Collegiate distance records will be under siege tomorrow at the @TerrierTFXC Sharon Colyear-Danville Season Opener.https://t.co/ugGOhsaeAX pic.twitter.com/sSIP4nZnfo

— USTFCCCA (@USTFCCCA) December 6, 2024

Up first, Kenyan freshman Judy Rono will compete in her first collegiate race in the second heat of the women’s mile before seniors Luke Cunningham and Dylan Burrows make their season debuts in the second heat of the men’s mile.

In the fastest heat of the women’s 5,000m, Kosgei will get another chance to race against 2024 NCAA XC Champion Doris Lemngole of Alabama as well as third-place finisher Hilda Olemomoi (Florida) in a race that features eight of the top 10 individual finishers from nationals two weeks ago. The pace for that race is set for 14:56 – only last year’s NCAA champion Parker Valby has broken 15:00 indoors as a collegian.

After finishing 35th in his first NCAA Championship race in November, true freshman Collins Kiprotich will be competing in the top men’s 3,000m heat alongside Lukas Kiprop in a field that includes seven Top-60 finishers from nationals as well as 2022 and 2023 NCAA Outdoor 1,500m championships Jonathan Davis (Unattached) and Joe Waskom (Washington). The pace for that race is set for 4:04 through the first mile (7:34 through 3,000m) – the current NCAA record indoors is 7:36.42, set on the same track in Boston in January 2023.

In other distance racing, three-time All-American Evans Kiplagat (40th at NCAA’s) will join Kiprotich when he returns for the second-fastest 5,000m heat of the night, with Vincent Chirchir, Luke Cunningham and Will Pardue in the third, seventh and eighth heats following.

After redshirting cross country season, 2023 XC All-American Nicola Jansen will slot in for the second 5,000m heat following Kosgei in her first indoor competition in a Lobo uniform. Mercy Kirarei – who earned her first All-American honors in her last race in Madison with a 35th-place finish – will compete in the second heat of the 3,000m, with Sophia McDonnell and Judy Rono both racing in the heat following.

Saturday’s action in Boston will be streamed via paid subscription to FloTrack. Head to GoLobos.com/FollowTrack for all of this week’s live results and streaming links all in one place and follow @UNMLoboXCTF on Instagram and X for live coverage, meet day content and more.

Sharon Colyear-Danville Opener
Saturday, Dec. 7 | Boston, Mass. | BU Track & Tennis Center

KOSGEI NAMED HONDA SPORT AWARD FINALIST
New Mexico’s freshman distance superstar Pamela Kosgei has been named as one of four finalists for the Class of 2025 Honda Sport Award for Cross Country, recognizing the top female athlete in the sport for this season.

Alongside Kosgei, Amy Bunnage from Stanford University, Doris Lemngole from the University of Alabama and Hilda Olemomoi from the University of Florida have been announced as the four finalists for the Class of 2025 Honda Sport Award for Cross Country, as revealed today by Chris Voelz, Executive Director of The Collegiate Women Sports Awards (CWSA).

Kosgei concluded the season as national runner-up at NCAA Championships — the only race which she did not win as an individual in her collegiate debut season. She won all four of her first six collegiate 6K races by an average of 26.95 seconds, winning Mountain West Conference and Mountain Region Individual titles as the top performer for a Lobo Women’s XC squad that finished 7th in the nation when all was said and done In addition to finishing as an All-American, Kosgei earned Mountain West Athlete & Freshman of the Year honors and USTFCCCA Mountain Region Athlete of the Year honors.

The Honda Sport Award has been presented annually by the CWSA for the past 49 years, recognizing the top women athletes in 12 NCAA-sanctioned sports and symbolizing “the best of the best in collegiate athletics.” The recipient of the sport award will become a finalist for the prestigious Collegiate Woman Athlete of the Year and the 2025 Honda Cup, which will be presented during the live broadcast of the Collegiate Women Sports Awards Presented by Honda on CBS Sports Network in June.

The finalists were selected based on their standout performances at the 2024 NCAA Cross Country Championship. The Honda Sport Award for Cross Country winner will be announced early next week after voting by administrators from over 1,000 NCAA member schools. Each NCAA member institution has a vote.

Kosgei is the fourth Lobo women’s runner to be named as a finalist for the award along with Courtney Frerichs (2015), Ednah Kurgat (2017) and Weini Kelati (2018, 2019). Kurgat was voted as the overall winner in 2017, with Kelati winning the award in 2019 after finishing second in voting in 2018.

NCAA CHAMPIONSHIPS RECAP
Pamela Kosgei and Habtom Samuel both finished as individual runners-up — 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.”

“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)

RANKINGS UPDATE
• In the final regular-season polls leading up to NCAA Championships the UNM men matched their highest ranking in program history after moving up to No. 5 and the women remained at No. 10 in the USTFCCCA’s final polls released on Monday — the third consecutive week with both teams ranked among the Top 10. The women outperformed their ranking with a seventh-place finish at nationals, with the men finishing ninth in the team score.
• It’s only the second time in program history that the UNM men have cracked the Top Five, when both UNM men’s and women’s squads came in at No. 5 in the final poll of the 2010 season. It’s also only the second time in history that both teams enter NCAA Championships ranked among the Top 10 in the nation and the first since that 2010 season.
• Should the Lobo men hold to their ranking at NCAA Championships, it’d be their best finish in program history. They’ve only finished in the Top 10 in the team score at nationals twice with a 9th-place finish in 2004 and an 8th-place finish in 2009.
• In the women’s poll, the Lobos held steady at No. 10 even after beating out a No. 9 Utah team to finish third at Mountain Regionals on Saturday behind an individual title from Pamela Kosgei. The true freshman remains undefeated in collegiate races with an average margin of victory of 26.95 seconds.
• In the last 10 seasons in which the Lobo women have secured a team qualification to NCAA Championships, they’ve entered ranked among the top 10 nationally. It’s their 16th team appearance in the last 17 seasons.
• This is only the ninth weekly USTFCCCA poll in program history in which both squads are ranked in the Top 10 at the same time — three of which are the last three polls this season. Prior to this year, the two teams were both ranked No. 9 in the Week 5 poll in 2013 and both cracked the Top 10 in Weeks 4, 5 and 8 of 2010 before both being ranked No. 5 in 2010’s final poll ahead of NCAA Championships.

UNM MEN’S CROSS COUNTRY – WEEK 6 USTFCCCA RANKINGS
National Rank: No. 5
Mountain Region Finish: No. 2

UNM WOMEN’S CROSS COUNTRY – WEEK 5 USTFCCCA RANKINGS
National Rank: No. 10
Mountain Region Finish: No. 3