Watts, Kosgei Earn MW Weekly Track Honors
After big improvements at elevation in New Mexico’s final home meet of the year last Friday, Cam Watts has been named MW Men’s Track Athlete of the Week and Pamela Kosgei has been named Women’s Freshman & Athlete of the week, the league announced Tuesday.
For Watts, it’s the second MW Weekly track honor of his debut season – it’s Kosgei’s third conference weekly award of the outdoor season and her eighth of the year counting cross country and indoor track.
Watts improved on his UNM program record with a massive PR (.16 seconds) to win the men’s 100m dash in 10.05 (10.08 converted) – he’s now run two-tenths of a second faster than the previous school record shared by Beejay Lee and Victor Akhalu (10.28) and moves up to No. 7 in the West Region and No. 18 in the nation while leading the Mountain West.
The football player-turned-sprinter’s performance is .22 seconds faster than the No. 2 time in the MW this season from Utah State’s Ayodele Ojo (10.30@) and just eight-hundredths of a second shy of matching Malachi Snow’s all-time conference record of 10.00. It’s the 19th-fastest time in the world this year and the second-fastest raw performance in MW Conference history behind Malachi Snow’s 10.00 mark last season.
Kosgei – who ran just .27 seconds shy of Parker Valby’s collegiate 5,000m record last weekend at Bryan Clay – secured her 10,000m in similar fashion to Samuel and Kipkurui with another staggering time at elevation. Kosgei finished in 31:58.52 for a converted PR of 30:55.37 that stands as a 8.35-second improvement from her 31:02.73 performance at Sound Running’s THE TEN (3/29) that was already the second-fastest in collegiate history.
That 30:55.37 conversion is the only collegiate mark within even 25 seconds of Parker Valby’s 30:50.43 collegiate record. Kosgei now leads the national performance list in both the 5,000m and 10,000m with No. 2 NCAA All-Time performances in both.
UP NEXT
The Lobos head to Tucson, Ariz. for their final regular-season meet of the year at the Arizona Desert Heat Classic (May 3). Saturday’s competition will not be streamed. Head to GoLobos.com/TrackResults for all of this weekend’s live results and follow @UNMLoboXCTF on Instagram and X for live coverage, meet day content and more.