Pamela Kosgei Named MW Female Athlete of the Year
After a historically dominant freshman season in which she racked up six Mountain West individual titles, five All-American trophies and two outdoor national titles, Pamela Kosgei has been named Mountain West Female Athlete of the Year for the 2024-25 academic year, the league announced on Thursday.
She’s the first Lobo to win the award since fellow cross country / track & field athlete Amelia Mazza-Downie did so in 2022-23 — other Lobo XC/TF alums to earn the honor include Weini Kelati (2019-20), Josh Kerr (2016-2017) and Courtney Frerichs (2015-16). UNM golfer Jodi Ewart (2009-10) is the only non-track and field athlete from New Mexico to win the award.
In her freshman season alone, Kosgei earned MW Cross Country Freshman & Athlete of the Year honors after leading the Lobos to a team title with a first-place finish — at NCAA Cross Country Championships, she finished as national runner-up to help the Lobos finish seventh in the nation as a team. In the spring semester, the Lobos went on to complete a sweep of MW Indoor and Outdoor Track & Field women’s team titles in 2025 for the first time in program history, largely thanks to a total of five more individual titles from Kosgei (Indoor Mile, Indoor 3,000m, Indoor 5,000m, Outdoor 5,000m, Outdoor Steeplechase) for a combined total of 50 points in the team scores.
After the conclusion of the collegiate season, Kosgei made the cut for the Kenyan senior national team ahead of 2025 World Athletics Championships in Tokyo (Sep. 13-21), where she’ll compete for a world title in the 3,000m steeplechase.
Pamela Kosgei = 𝗘𝗟𝗜𝗧𝗘.
Congrats on becoming the first Finalist for @thebowerman in program history 👏🐺#GoLobos pic.twitter.com/ocvTH4iOiD
— New Mexico XC/T&F (@UNMLoboXCTF) July 7, 2025
In the indoor season, Kosgei ran the fifth-fastest indoor 5,000m in collegiate history (15:00.36) to open the season, going on to qualify in both the 3,000m and 5,000m for NCAA Indoor Championships — she finished third in the 5,000m and 11th in the 3,000m after a costly fall.
Later in the year, Kosgei 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 in 31:58.51 at 5,120 feet of altitude in Albuquerque in registering the fastest time for any woman at high altitude outside of Africa.
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.
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. 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 also 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.
Earlier in the summer, Kosgei became the fourth female to be named a finalist for The Bowerman during her freshman year, joining Sydney McLaughlin (2018), Sha’Carri Richardson (2019), and Athing Mu (2021). She’s the first athlete to represent the Mountain West as a finalist as well as the first woman from New Mexico to make the cut.
The Bowerman is bestowed to collegiate track & field’s top male and female athlete for the year, with three women’s finalists at The Bowerman presentation in December after the conclusion of fan and official voting.
Kosgei also took home National Scholar-Athlete of the Year honors from the USTFCCCA in recognition of her efforts in the classroom. She wrapped up the year with a cumulative GPA of 3.33, majoring in public health.