After a big team showing at the Nuttycombe Invitational last Friday in Madison, New Mexico’s Habtom Samuel was named Mountain West Men’s Athlete of the Week and Marion Jepngetich was named Women’s Freshman of the Week, the league announced Tuesday.
They’re the fourth and fifth conference weekly awards that Lobo cross country athletes have earned so far this season – it’s Jepngetich’s second XC Freshman of the Week honor this season and the fourth Athlete of the Week of Samuel’s career.
In his season debut at Nuttycombe, Samuel made clear why he's the favorite to win it all at NCAA Championships in November with an individual win, beating out the second-place finisher by 7.6 seconds with a 22:58.0 finish. He earned USTFCCCA National Athlete of the Week honors on Monday as a result.
The Eritrean junior anchored a 51-point outing for the Lobo men, outpacing all 17 teams in the field that entered this week ranked among the Top 30 in the most recent national USTFCCCA polls. Behind him, all five Lobo point-scorers packed in the Top 25 finishers – Collins Kiprotich (6th, 23:27.0) and Evans Kiplagat (9th, 23:32.6) joined him in the Top 10 and Vincent Chirchir (13th, 23:35.4) and Mathew Kosgei (22nd, 23:39.7) buttoned up the 51-point score.
Samuel now holds both the Nuttycombe Invitational meet record and the Zimmer Championship Course 8K record with his winning time from last year's UW Pre-Nationals meet (22:33.8). He also finished as NCAA Runner-Up on the same course in Madison at last year's National Championships despite losing a shoe halfway through the race. Samuel's time eclipsed Parker Wolfe's record of 23:04.0 set at last year's Nuttycombe, making him the first sub-23 minute 8K finisher in the history of collegiate cross country's most prestigious regular-season race.
Jepngetich ran a new collegiate best (20:10.6) as she finished as the lowest scorer for the Lobo women in 16th overall at the Nuttycombe Invitational.
The UNM women outscored No. 14 Utah (316 points), No. 29 Wisconsin (345 points), No. 10 Colorado (355 points), No. 18 Washington (364 points), No. 27 Washington State (365 points), No. 24 Michigan State (365 points), No. 20 Gonzaga (391 points), No. 6 Northern Arizona (418 points) and No. 28 Providence (696 points), finishing ninth among 30 of the nation’s best teams.
RANKINGS UPDATE
In this week's USTFCCCA National Coaches' Poll released Tuesday, both Lobo squads remained in the Top 10 nationally -- the men held steady at No. 3 in the nation while the women came in at No. 9 nationally. The two teams still rank No. 1 and No. 2 in the Mountain Region, respectively.
UP NEXT
With regular-season racing now complete, the Lobos look to defend their 2024 men’s and women’s conference title sweep at Mountain West XC Championships in Fresno, Calif. on Oct. 31, with Pamela Kosgei making her long-awaited season debut. All of the action at MWC Championships will be free to stream via the MW Network, with live results available via GoLobos.com/XCResults. Follow @UNMLoboXCTF on IG and X for raceday updates, behind-the-scenes content and more.