NCAA CHAMPIONSHIP HISTORY
The UNM men will be making their 13th appearance as a team at NCAA Championships and third in a row after finishing 18th in 2023 and 9th in 2024. Their highest finish in program history came in 2009, when they finished tied for 8th place with 350 points.
In total, 19 men from New Mexico have finished among the Top 40 to earn All-American status at NCAA Championships. After an individual runner-up finish in 2023, Habtom Samuel is only the fourth Lobo men’s runner to finish as an XC All-American multiple times – Matt Gonzales (2001, 2004), Luke Caldwell (2012-2013) and Abdirizak Ibrahim (2020-21) are the only other athletes to accomplish that feat. He would become UNM’s first three-time men’s All-American should he finish in the Top 40 on Saturday.
Gonzales and Samuel are the only two men from New Mexico to finish as individual runners-up at nationals – UNM has never had a male NCAA individual cross country champion.
The Lobo Women are making their 17th NCAA appearance in the last 18 seasons – and their 12th in which they enter as a Top-10 team in the national polls – as well as their 12th overall. UNM won women’s NCAA Team Championships in 2015 and 2017 and finished in the Top 10 for 13 consecutive seasons from 2010-2022 before narrowly missing out on a team qualification in Gauson’s first year in 2023. Last season, they returned to form with a seventh-place team finish.
UNM women’s runners have racked up 42 All-American finishes in those appearances, with Ednah Kurgat (2017) and Weini Kelati (2019) both winning NCAA Individual Championships. The Lobos have finished with multiple All-Americans in each of the last 12 NCAA Championship races in which the UNM women have qualified as a team.
LOBO MEN HUNTING FOR HARDWARE
New Mexico’s men have yet to lose a team race at full force this season and carry hopes of a team podium – if not national title – finish into this weekend. They've been ranked among the Top 3 teams in the nation the entire season and won two of the most challenging meets of the year at Nuttycombe and Mountain Regionals but have yet to face the two teams ranked above them – No. 1 Oklahoma State and No. 2 Iowa State – at full strength. The Lobos narrowly fell to OSU by five points as both teams raced without their top athletes at the Cowboy Jamboree in September and handedly beat an Iowa State contingent that didn't feature any of their projected top five scorers at Nuttycombe in October.
NO BETTER TIME TO BE A CHAMPION
After finishing as national runner-up in each of the last two seasons – doing so despite losing a shoe halfway through the race in 2024 – Habtom Samuel is the odds-on favorite to finally take home his first XC title and second individual national title overall (2024, Outdoor 10,000m). In the 2024-25 academic year, Samuel finished as NCAA Runner-Up a total of four times (XC, Indoor 5,000m, Outdoor 10,000m, Outdoor 5,000m).
Samuel enters this weekend ranked as the No. 1 runner in the nation in both FloTrack’s individual rankings and the USTFCCCA’s XCRI calculations. He has yet to lose a race he's competed in this season, winning individual titles at Nuttycombe, Mountain West Championships and Mountain Regionals – he broke his own course and meet records en route to repeat wins at Nuttycombe and at conference championships.
PAMELA VS. ANYBODY
The reigning outdoor 5,000m and 10,000m champion, Pamela Kosgei has only ran twice for the Lobos so far this fall after competing for Team Kenya at World Championships in September, but the 2024 NCAA Runner-Up showed no signs of rust in a winning effort at Mountain West Championships and second-place finish at Regionals. She ranks No. 4 among the nation's individuals in the most recent FloTrack rankings.
LOBO WOMEN MAKE A STATEMENT AT REGIONALS
New Mexico’s women won their seventh Mountain Region team title with an upset of No. 1 BYU last Friday, edging the Cougars 47-45 thanks to a runner-up finish from Pamela Kosgei and four other point-scorers in the overall Top 15.
After dropping out of the national Top Five after a ninth place finish at Nuttycombe without Kosgei, the Lobo women are back in the podium conversation after beating out a combined five teams that moved on to NCAA Championships in their last two races.They climbed from No. 8 to No. 4 in the final USTFCCCA Poll of the regular Season released on Monday.
RANKINGS UPDATE
New Mexico heads into its biggest race of the year with both men’s and women’s teams ranked in the Top Four nationally, with the men ranked No. 3 and the women at No. 4 in the USTFCCCA Week 6 Coaches’ Poll released Monday. The men are ranked third in the nation for the fifth week in a row, with the women rejoining them in the Top Four after their big win over BYU at Mountain Regionals bumped them from No. 8 to No. 4.
UNM MEN’S CROSS COUNTRY – WEEK 6 USTFCCCA RANKINGS
National Rank: No. 3
Mountain Region Finish: 1st
UNM WOMEN’S CROSS COUNTRY – WEEK 6 USTFCCCA RANKINGS
National Rank: No. 4
Mountain Region Finish: 1st
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NATIONAL POLLS
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PRESEASON
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WEEK 1
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WEEK 2
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WEEK 3
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WEEK 4
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WEEK 5
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WEEK 6
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New Mexico (Men)
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#2
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#2
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#3
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#3
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#3
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#3
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#3
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New Mexico (Women)
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#4
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#3
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#5
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#5
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#9
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#8
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#4
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The UNM men’s No. 3 ranking comes courtesy of a wealth of proven returners – the Lobos return 2023 and 2024 individual runner-up Habtom Samuel as well as fellow XC All-Americans Collins Kiprotich and Evans Kiplagat. The Lobo men solidified their status as a potential threat for a national team title with a first-place team finish among a field of 17 nationally-ranked teams at the Wisconsin Nuttycombe Invitational in October and haven’t looked back since.
UNM also touts five other men’s returners that ran below 13:40 for 5K during the track season and brings in steeplechase All-American Mathew Kosgei for an even deeper squad than in 2024-25, when they finished ninth in the nation in 2024 at XC Championships and fifth in the team score at Outdoor Championships.
Rising from No. 8 in the most recent polls, the Lobo women finally raced at full strength for the first time this season at MW Championships and followed up with an even more impressive team win at regionals. Their ambitions of a return to the team podium rest largely on Pamela Kosgei, who finished as national runner-up as a true freshman before winning both the outdoor 5,000m and 10,000m titles over an undefeated outdoor season. UNM also returns 2024 All-American Mercy Kirarei (35th in the nation) and 2023 All-American Nicola Jansen among four athletes from last year’s squad that competed at nationals. Outdoor 5,000m All-American Marion Jepngetich is also running cross country for the first time, leading the Lobos with a third-place individual finish in her collegiate debut at Cowboy Jamboree and earning MW Freshman & Athlete of the Week honors.
Week 2’s No. 2 rank was the highest ranking in program history for the men – the women’s peak of No. 3 in Week 2 was their highest since the final poll of 2022, when they were ranked No. 2 in the nation. For the sixth week in a row, the two squads were both projected as automatic team qualifiers for NCAA Championships, with the men at No. 1 in the Mountain Region for the first time in program history and the women at No. 2.
HABTOM SAMUEL NAMED NATIONAL ATHLETE OF THE WEEK
After his loud season debut – and team title – at Nuttycombe, Habtom Samuel earned the second USTFCCCA National Athlete of the Week honors of his collegiate career the following Monday. The last time he was named National Athlete of the Week was exactly a year prior, when he won Wisconsin Pre-Nationals on the same course to lead a fourth-place finish for the Lobo men.
