2025 Lobo XC Schedule Now Available
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. – New Mexico Cross Country’s 2025 schedule is now complete and out to the public, with the Lobos primed for another run at the team podium on both the men’s and women’s sides after a breakthrough 2024-25 season.
This year’s slate features four regular season meets across eight weeks, culminating in the Mountain West Championships in Fresno, Calif. (Oct. 31) and the NCAA Mountain Region Championships in Salt Lake City, Utah. (Nov. 14). Should either the men’s or women’s squad secure an automatic bid with a Top-2 finish at Regionals or hear their names called as an at-large selection, the Lobos will head to Columbia, Mo. for the NCAA Cross Country Championships (Nov. 22).
In the Lobos’ second year under Head Coach Darren Gauson in 2024-25, the Lobo women finished seventh in the nation and the men finished ninth – the lowest combined placing between the two teams at the NCAA Championships in program history. Among 11 programs that qualified both men’s and women’s squads for nationals, UNM was one of just three that placed both teams in the Top 10 alongside BYU and Northern Arizona. The indoor and outdoor track season saw even more success, with the UNM women completing the sweep of XC, indoor and outdoor conference titles before Ishmael Kipkurui (10,000m) and Pamela Kosgei (5,000m and 10,000m) both took home NCAA Outdoor titles in June. With the UNM men finishing fifth in the nation outdoors and the women ninth, Gauson took home both men’s and women’s Mountain Region Coach of the Year honors from the USTFCCCA, with Kosgei named as a finalist for The Bowerman to cap off a historic freshman season.
Behind national runner-up finishes from Kosgei and Habtom Samuel, five Lobos – three men and two women – secured Top-40 individual finishes for All-American honors, with 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. All five return for this upcoming season.
The Lobos get the season underway in Las Cruces at the Lori Fitzgerald Open for the fifth year in a row on Aug. 30, with both men and women running at the 5K distance for their annual rust-buster. Two weeks later, they’ll welcome collegiate cross country competition back to Albuquerque at the Lobo Invitational on Sep. 13. Hosted at UNM’s North Golf Course, this year’s Lobo Invitational will feature men’s and women’s collegiate 5K races as well as high school and community races. Next year, UNM’s North Course will be the host site for 2026 NCAA Mountain Regional Championships.
The Lobos will close out the regular season slate with the two biggest regular-season meets of the year as the distance expands to 8K for the men and 6K for the women. First, they’ll head to Stillwater, Okla., for their first race against ranked competition at the OSU Cowboy Jamboree (Sep. 26) before returning to Madison, Wisc., for the Nuttycombe Invitational (Oct. 18).
– The Lobos’ trip to Stillwater will be their second year in a row running a regular-season race at Oklahoma State after doing so for the first time last season – the UNM women won the team title at last year’s meet, with the men finishing second.
– At last year’s Wisconsin Pre-Nationals on the same course, Samuel and Kosgei both swept the individual titles with new course records as the Lobo men and women both outpaced 15 ranked teams each to finish fourth and sixth in the team scores.
Postseason racing kicks off with the 2025 Mountain West XC Championships on Oct. 31, hosted by Fresno State in Fresno, Calif. The Lobos have won at least one men’s or women’s MW team title in each of the last 17 seasons, dating back to 2008, after winning both men’s and women’s team titles in 2024.
– UNM athletes have won 17 individual MW titles since the conference’s inception, with nine of them in the last decade. In 2024, the Lobos swept the individual titles and Athlete of the Year awards, with Gauson named both men’s and women’s Coach of the Year.
This year’s NCAA Mountain Regional Championships will be held in Salt Lake City, as both teams look to punch their ticket at nationals with a Top-2 finish or at least solidify their case for an at-large bid with a convincing performance against the region’s best. For the men, the race distance expands again to 10K for both NCAA Regionals and NCAA Championships, while the women continue to run 6K.
Should the Lobos secure a trip to the NCAA Championships, they’ll head to Columbia, Mo., for the NCAA Cross Country Championships, hosted by Mizzou. UNM has qualified both the men’s and women’s NCAA teams for the NCAA in the same year seven times in program history, with last year being the first time in a decade that the Lobos had achieved this feat.