We’re in the final stretch of the cross country season, with conference, regional, and national championships all coming up within the next month. So, it’s high time for us to check in with both teams to see how they’ve been doing and see where they might go from here.

What the Women Have Been Up To

They aren’t the world-beaters that they were last year, but they have a chance to still do really well in the NCAA championships. The key will be for improvements out of the 3-5 runners, as that’s where just a few seconds of improvement can make a big difference. 5^th place at ND, 4^th place at Wisco.

They aren’t the world-beaters that they were last year, but this iteration of Lobo women’s cross country is still one of the top teams in the country. They’re currently ranked 7^th overall and are certainly in the conversation to do well at the NCAA championships. They’ve placed 4^th in both of their events this season against some tough fields and look to have the potential to do even better in the future.

In their first event, the Notre Dame Invitational, the Lobos finished 4^th, within earshot of the 2^nd and 3^rd place finishers. The results for the top 10 teams can be found in the plot below. In the plot, the heights of the bars are the total points scored by the team, while the colors show how much of that score came from each team’s 1-5 runners.

Unsurprisingly, junior Alice Wright paced the Lobos, finishing 2^nd by just 4.3 seconds. Behind her, senior Calli Thackery had a strong showing, finishing 5^th overall. There was a bit of a gap after that, with senior Sophie Connor finishing 37^th, freshman Alex Buck finishing 60^th, and sophomore Natasha Bernal finishing 62^nd to compete the scoring. Senior Kathryn Fluehr (71^st), sophomore Kendall Kelly (93^rd), and junior Kieran Casey (96^th) also competed for the Lobos. The plot below shows the results for all of the runners in this event, with the Lobos shown in red.

In their second event, the Wisconsin Invitational, the Lobos again finished 4^th, and pretty solidly that time. The results for the top 10 teams in that race can be seen in the plot below.

Again, Wright and Thackery were at the front of the pack, with Alice finishing 2^nd again and Calli placing 9^th. Behind them, Sophie Connor finished 40^th, Natasha Bernal was 63^rd, Alex Buck finished 93^rd to complete the scoring for the Lobos. Kathryn Fleuhr (110^th) and Kendall Kelly (135^th) also competed. The results for all of the runners can be found in the plot below, with the Lobos shown in red.

What we can see from these two events is that the Lobos have two elite runners on the roster and several very good runners behind them. Where the Lobos have the most potential is in their 3-5 runners, as modest gains in performance could result in huge jumps in finishing position. If they can get just a little more out of that group, they could again be in the hunt for a national championship. These Lobo teams seem to keep improving as the season goes on, so it wouldn’t be a shock to see that happen.

How the Men Have Been Keeping Busy

The men are currently in a bit of a rebuilding mode, which is evidenced by both the number of freshmen that are competing and by results so far. In their first big meet, the Notre Dame Invitational, the squad finished towards the back of the field, ended up 23^rd out of 25 teams. The breakdown of finishes by the top 10 teams, plus the Lobos, can be seen in the plot below.

Now, it’s worth mentioning that their strongest runner, senior Graham Thomas, was out sick for this race, so if he had competed, my guess is that the Lobos would have jumped up to 17^th or 18^th. Still, this is a team that is building for the future. In fact, in that race, four of their seven runners for the Lobos were freshmen, including top performer, Jacob Simonsen. After Simonsen, senior Jesus Mendoza, junior Zach Castillo, and freshmen Emil Danielsson and Jared Garcia scored for the Lobos. The results for all of the runners can be seen in the plot below, with the Lobos results in red.

Coach Franklin took notice of the results of the first race and decided that the team needed to gain more experience running together, so rather than having them compete in the main race at the Wisconsin Invitational, he had them run in the “B” race. The results were much better, with the team not only winning that race, but staying together for the first half of the race before starting to separate towards the end. Graham Thomas was the top performer in that race, followed by Mendoza, Simonsen, Castillo, and freshman Alexander Palm. This team has a lot of young runners who don’t have a lot of     experience at running in these types of events, so I would expect to see them continue to improve as the season goes on. If they can makes some gains, the team could be set up to return to form next year.

What’s Next?

Tomorrow morning, both the men and the women will compete in the Mountain West Championships. For the women, they are the favorites, and certainly expecting to win, but are also focused on the main goal for the season: being at top form for the NCAA Championships. There’s no doubt that Alice Wright and Calli Thackery will be towards the front of the pack, but I’m sure Coach Franklin would like to see some of the other runners join them. For the men, they’re expected to finish somewhere towards the middle, given that there are three tough teams in the field in Colorado St., Boise St., and Air Force. If they can sneak into the top three, not only would that be a great showing from this team, it would prove that the future is bright.