The University of New Mexico women’s cross country team has dominated another Mountain West Conference XC Championship — their twelfth consecutive year taking the gold. The race, ran in Utah on Nov. 1, was another big victory for the Lobos as their competition was unable to hold a flame to the running team.
Ahead of the pack was New Mexico’s Weini Kelati, last year’s female champion and two-time MWC Athlete of the Week. Kelati secured her second MW champion title with a time of 19:11.2, breaking the Mountain West record by 26 seconds.
The junior runner led her teammates to victory as Ednah Kurgot took the runner-up spot with a 20:00.2 time, and two other UNM runners came in fifth and tenth.
At the start of the race, Kelati was immediately out of the gate and pulling ahead of the other women. An early prediction saw the UNM team finishing close to Boise State but as the Air Force Falcons moved in on the Broncos, it began to tell a different story for the results of this championship race.
The women finished the race with a score of 31, which was good for a 23-point margin of victory over second-place Air Force.
Unfortunately on the men’s side, the team couldn’t get their grounding, coming in at sixth place at the MWC Championship. The New Mexico men landed in sixth with a 111 team score. Unable to reach the top 10 individually, Toby Cook led his teammates and finished the race with a time of 23:34.9.
Utah State finished on top of the men’s team competition with a total of 42 points.
The Lobos will be running in the NCAA Mountain Region competition on Nov. 15 in Salt Lake City, Utah. A win in Salt Lake City would qualify the Lobos to compete at the NCAA National Championship.
Alanie Rael is the sports editor at the Daily Lobo. She can be contacted at sports@dailylobo.com or on Twitter @AllyRael
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