The UNM cross country team reduced the BYU Cougars to mere house cats.
The Lobos stomped all over the juggernaut No. 7 BYU — and the rest of the league for that matter — sweeping the men’s and women’s titles in the Mountain West Conference Championships on Saturday in Provo, Utah.
The men’s team became the second squad to beat BYU at the conference tournament in the league’s 11-year history. The women, however, took the title for the second consecutive year.
Jacob Kirwa, who was named MWC Runner of the Year, garnered the individual title with a time of 23:34.5 in the 8,000-meter run, while senior Chris Barnicle finished fourth with a time of 23:51.2. Three Lobo women rounded out the top four in the 6,000-meter run, junior Ruth Senior (21:10.7) leading UNM with a second place finish, followed by Nicky Archer (21:14.9) and Lacey Oeding (21:17.8).
“It was one of the team goals all season, and being underdogs going into it and coming out on top was great,” Barnicle said. “I think it showed we’re better than our (No. 19) ranking.”
Head coach Joe Franklin said both UNM teams are talented.
“To get both men and women to win was great,” said Franklin, who was named MWC Coach of the Year. “It’s the first time at the University of New Mexico both teams won the tournament in the same year. It made for a fun plane ride home.”
Franklin said he was impressed most with one of his runners who made progress over the weekend.
“Vanessa Ortiz was outstanding,” Franklin said. “She really hadn’t been in the position she was this weekend.”
Ortiz, who redshirted last year, competed all year and had been close to reaching her potential most of the year until this performance. She finished eighth on Saturday.
And that performance in the tournament was good enough to cement Ortiz’s spot on the regional roster.
“My main goal was to be a scorer, and I was,” Ortiz said. “Our team is so good. We have four top runners. Ruth, Nicky, Ashley and Lacey are always scorers.”
Freshman Ross Millington also had a solid season. On top of being named MWC Freshman of the Year, he charged to finish 10th in Saturday’s race.
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“I wasn’t paying attention to the results of other freshmen during the year, but I was pretty confident I was going to get it,” Millington said. The next challenge for the men’s and women’s teams is the NCAA Mountain Region Championships, which will take place at the UNM North Golf Course on Nov. 14.
“It’s great being here, because I have a lot of supporters here in Albuquerque, especially having my family out there to support me,” Ortiz said.
Millington said he’ll appreciate the support he gets from close fans.
“It’s completely different,” he said. “Back home in England, I had big races and people would clap, but here people ring bells and just go nuts cheering for you, and I love it.”
Archer said both Lobo teams are looking to pick up where they left off.
“Team wise, we are looking to qualify for nationals, obviously,” she said. “Our region is stronger than last year, so we just need to run hard to get to nationals.”
Barnicle said that if UNM performs like it did in this last tournament, that’s a realistic possibility.
“We’re getting better every week and the big picture is NCAAs,” he said. “It’ll be scary if we continue to improve for other teams at nationals.”
