If anyone is questioning the No. 1 ranking of the New Mexico women’s cross country team, they are still searching for reasonable doubt.
The UNM women’s cross country team not only took first place at the Wisconsin Adidas Invitational on Friday, but it dominated the field in the six-kilometer race and won by 156 points. The Lobo men, meanwhile, finished in 23rd place.
Courtney Frerichs, Rhona Auckland, Calli Thackery and Alice Wright swept fourth through seventh place, all finishing within four seconds of each other. Molly Renfer came in 10th place, just 12 seconds after that group.
It’s hard to imagine the women’s team could improve upon its last performance, but the results showed the women’s success over the field. In fact, the women were so dominant that they set a new meet record with a team score of 32 points, crushing the previous meet record of 78 points.
Head coach Joe Franklin said the plan was for all the competitors to run as a team and communicate with each other. And, of course, he said he wanted the team to have fun.
“They ran really well. They were supportive of each other. They did a great job,” Franklin said.
The men’s team had a strong finish to the race, making up ground on the competition. Dan Milechman finished 59th in the eight-kilometer race, Elmar Engholm 84th, Graham Thomas 109th, finishing within 15 seconds of each other. The men improved the overall time between runners, with less than 27 seconds separating runners one through five.
Franklin said it was fair to say this meet would be a good indicator of where the program is at because of the depth of the field. For the women, 20 of the top 25 programs were in Wisconsin to compete, and 17 of the top 25 were present for the men.
“The men keep getting better and better. They’re going in the right direction and they’re running hard,” Franklin said. “We have a shot to be really good by the end of the year.”
Boise State’s Allie Ostrander finished in first place for the women, followed by Molly Seidel from Notre Dame and Dominique Scott from Arkansas. The women’s field consisted of 246 runners.
On the men’s side, 244 runners competed with Tulsa’s Marc Scott posting the best time at 23:35.0. Justyn Knight from Syracuse finished 2nd, and two more of his teammates finished in the top 10, which allowed them to capture the victory with a team score of 101 points.
The Lobos will next travel to Reno, Nevada to compete in the NCAA Mountain West Cross Country Championships. The event takes place on Oct, 30. The men will run eight kilometers at 11:00, and the women six kilometers at 11:45 Mountain Time.
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Robert Maler is a reporter for the Daily Lobo. He can be reached at culture@dailylobo.com or on Twitter @DailyLobo.
