The defending champions No. 2-ranked New Mexico women’s cross country team placed fourth among 23 teams, while the youthful men’s squad placed 23rd of 25 on Friday afternoon in Notre Dame, Indiana.
Although the women’s team couldn’t accomplish a three-peat — having won the Joe Piane Notre Dame Invite in 2014 and 2015 — it remained competitive with solid top-five performances from Alice Wright (second place) and Calli Thackery (fifth), with times of 16:16.0 and 16:30.9, respectively, in the 5-kilometer race.
Wright’s time was just 4.3 seconds behind individual first-place finisher Anna Rohrer of host Notre Dame. Both top-five individuals improved at Notre Dame. Wright moved up from fifth last year, while Thackery moved from sixth in 2015.
So did Sophie Connor, who placed 37th at 16:59.8, improving from her 67th place last year. Alex Buck (60h, 17:16.5) and Natasha Bernal (62nd, 17:17.3) also scored for the Lobos.
The women’s team tallied 166 points, just eight points from third place. No. 1 Providence won with 117 points. Head coach Joe Franklin regarded Providence as the main competitor of the invitational in an interview on Tuesday.
On the men’s side, the team paid the price for youth when Jacob Simonsen was the only player to finish top 100 with a 72nd-place finish at 24:41.7.
New Mexico frontrunner Graham Thomas was sidelined by illness, thus the team had to rely on a lineup that featured four freshmen.
The four other scorers for the men’s team were Jesus Mendoza in 105th place (24:57.2), Zac Castillo in 136th place (25:19.6), Emil Danielsson (141st, 25:22.9) and Jared Garcia (153rd, 25:33.8).
The Lobo men totaled 575 points, 19 points away from the top 20. Mississippi finished atop the leaderboard for the men with 83 points.
Bo Yu is a sports reporter for the Daily Lobo. He mainly covers Cross Country. He can be reached at sports@dailylobo.com.
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