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Lobos Lead Both Leadboards Through Day One at MW Indoor Championships

Lobos Lead Both Leadboards Through Day One at MW Indoor ChampionshipsLobos Lead Both Leadboards Through Day One at MW Indoor Championships

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. – With Day One of Mountain West Indoor Track & Field Championships complete, New Mexico leads both the men’s and women’s team scores after a dominant showing in the first distance races of the weekend, with Habtom Samuel and Pamela Kosgei both setting new championship records en route to runaway wins in the 5,000m and the Lobo distance medley relays combining for 18 points with a men’s title and a women’s runner-up finish to close out the night.

With 42 points in total through the first day, the UNM men outpace the rest of the team leaderboard by 34 points – behind them, Colorado State and Utah State are tied for second with eight points each. Boise State and Air Force are tied for fourth with six each ahead of Wyoming (5 points) and San Jose State (2 points).

On the women’s side, the Lobos (27 points) are just five points ahead of second-place Air Force (22 points), with Boise State and Colorado State tied for third with 14 points each.

Habtom Samuel broke his own MW championship record in the men’s 5,000m by more than 10 seconds with a 13:33.43 finish to defend his 2024 title and complete the Lobos’ sweep of both the men’s and women’s races in that distance, with Pamela Kosgei (15:53.72) also setting a new women’s championship record en route to her first conference track title.Β 

Samuel remains undefeated in MW Championship finals across cross country, indoor and outdoor. The only Mountain West race he has not won was an outdoor 1,500m prelim in Fresno last spring.Β 

Kosgei broke a championship record held by UNM All-American Amelia Mazza-Downie since 2022 (16:07.14) by just under 14 seconds – she becomes the first female Mountain West athlete to dip below the 16-minute mark in an indoor conference championship race, and only the sixth across indoor and outdoor championships.

Behind Kosgei, Marion Jepngetich (16:07.12) also finished below the previous championship record to finish as women’s runner up and score eight more points and Natalie Bitetti (16:57.85) finished eighth to tack on another.

The Lobos packed up to squeeze out 32 points in total from the men’s 5,000m race behind Samuel’s 10 points β€” Ishmael Kipkurui finished as runner-up just three-hundredths of a second behind Samuel (13:33.46) to score eight points ahead of Matthew Kosgei in third (13:45.92), Vincent Chirchir in fourth (13:59.14) and Evans Kiplagat (13:59.66) in sixth.

In the women’s distance medley relay, Judy Rono (1200), Hanna Kiess (400), Sophia McDonnell (800) and Hanna Bruckmayer (1600) put together a 11:31.27 clocking to finish second and bring in eight points for UNM. Up next in the men’s relay, Matthew Endrody (1200), Levente Soos (400), Luke Cunningham (800) and Collins Kiprotich (1600) crossed in 9:41.11 to edge out Utah State for the title and another 10 points to pad the men’s lead in the team score.