Kosgei Named as The Bowerman Semifinalist
With her historic 2025 outdoor season now in the rearview mirror, New Mexico’s Pamela Kosgei has been named as one of 10 semifinalists for track’s most prestigious award The Bowerman, the USTFCCCA announced on Wednesday.
Kosgei, who hails from Elgeyo-Marakwet County, Kenya, capped an undefeated collegiate outdoor season with titles in the 5000 and 10,000 at the NCAA DI Outdoor Championships. The 10k victory came first in meet-record time with the No. 3 all-time collegiate performance time of 31:17.82 — she has No. 2 at 31:02.73. In the 5,000m, she moved to No. 2 all-time collegiately in winning April’s Bryan Clay Invitational in 14:52.45, missing the CR by just 0.27 seconds. In between her 10k and 5k PRs she won the steeple at the Stanford Invitational in 9:15.93, then No. 2 and now No. 3 all-time collegiately. She had another impressive 10,000 performance, winning the Don Kirby Tailwind Twilight by over five minutes in 31:58.51 – at 5120 feet (1560 meters) of altitude in Albuquerque in registering the fastest time for any woman at high altitude outside of Africa. Indoors she was third in the NCAA DI 5000 before taking 11th in the 3000.
Finalists for the award will be announced on July 7.
Kosgei was only the fifth woman in NCAA history to win the 5K/10K double at the same Outdoor Championships and the only the third to do so since 1998. She’s also the first Lobo woman to finish as a first team All-American in two different events since Weini Kelati won the 10K and finished fifth in the 5K in 2019.
After completing a sweep of the women’s Mountain West XC, Indoor and Outdoor titles in May, the Lobo women wrapped up the 2025 outdoor season in 9th place in the team score with 25 points in total – the second-most women’s points at National Championships in program history behind a 27-point total in 2019. The men also matched their previous-highest finish with the most points in history (5th, 31 points) after the conclusion of Friday’s finals.
Earlier this week, the men finished seventh in the USTFCCCA’s D-I Men’s Program of the Year standings and eighth on the women’s side.
In total, the Lobo men’s and women’s teams combined for 56 points, more than doubling the previous highest total output in program history when the women scored 16 points and the men scored six in 2018. It’s also the first time with both teams in the Top 10 in the same year and the lowest combined finish between the two teams.
In total, the Lobos took home a total of eight First Team All-America trophies (five for men, three for women) with three individual titles between men and women.
New Mexico is the only non-power five program to finish among the Top 10 in the nation for both men and women – they are one of just four programs in the nation to do so along with USC, Texas A&M and Arkansas.
UNM is the only program in the nation to finish in the Top 10 nationally for men and women at both NCAA Cross Country and Outdoor Track & Field Championships in 2024-25.
