On Friday, the cross country teams traveled to Idaho to take on the other members of the Mountain West for the conference championships. As expected, the women again took home the trophy, making it nine years in a row. On the men’s side, the young team continued to show improvement, running a strong race to place fifth in a tough field.
Women’s Results
For a mind-boggling 9th straight year, the Lobo women placed first in the Mountain West Championship. They did this on the back of several strong performances, with Alice Wright and Calli Thackery finishing first and second, respectively, and all five point-scorers finishing in the top 20. In the plot below, we can see the results of all 11 teams that competed. 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.
While it wasn’t a shock that the Lobos won the race, it was a little surprising that Air Force gave them such a run for their money. In fact, if we look at only the top three runners, the Lobos are just one point ahead of the Falcons. The real separation occurred in the fourth and fifth runners, where the Lobos were able to stretch that lead to 11 points. This shows the importance of depth on a cross country team, which is something that the Lobos have done a good job building over the past few years.
As mentioned, Alice Wright won her first conference championship, finishing first with a 20:02.17 finish and looking really strong while doing so. If she can keep running like that, she’ll be at the front of the pack at the NCAA Championships. Right behind her was Calli Thackery, who placed second with her 20:11.30 finish. Sophie Connor was next for the Lobos, finishing 10th with a 20:52.10 time, followed by Natasha Bernal (11th, 20:56.20) and Kendall Kelly (18th, 21:15.80). For their efforts, Wright and Thackery earned first-team all-conference honors while Connor and Bernal were second-team all-conference. Kathryn Fleuhr (30th, 21:35.60), Alex Buck (33rd, 21:40.20), Kieran Casey (42nd, 21:51.80), and Kyoko Koyama (58th, 22.17.60) also competed for the Lobos, and all would have scored on several of the teams that competed. The results for all of the runners can be found in the plot below, with the Lobos shown in red.
We can see that there is a serious tail-off in the results from this race, with quite a bit of separation from the early finishers, like Wright and Thackery, and the back of the field. I think that this shows how impressive the Lobos’ depth is, as none of their 9 runners really land in that drop-off. This gives me confidence that they’ll be able to take home a 10th-straight title next year.
Men’s Results
Taking some of the lessons learned from their race up in Wisconsin, the Lobo men ran a solid race, and did so as a pack. They finished fifth overall, which was about what was expected, with the top three teams running away from the competition as we thought they might. Boise State had an impressive race to pull ahead of the favorites, Colorado State, but they were expected to be in the conversation. The team results can be found in the plot below.
As we can see, the Lobos were a ways behind the top three, but were just a handful of points behind Utah State for fourth. They did this by running together for the most part, as most of the times we saw the Lobos on the stream, there were at least two of them running together. Their results reflect that, with Graham Thomas again leading the way with his 24:36.70 finish, good for 18th overall, followed by the pack that included Jesus Mendoza (28th, 25:00.10), Adam Cotton (31st, 25:06.50), Alexander Palm (32nd, 25.06.70), and Zac Castillo (33rd, 25:08.80). Jacob Simonsen (40th, 25:22.20), Emil Danielsson (49th 25:35.80), Jared Garcia (50th, 25:44.60), and Tyler Valdez (62nd, 26:50.60) also ran for the Lobos. The results for all of the runners can be found in the plot below, with the Lobos in red.
I see a lot of potential in these results, as there really isn’t a ton of separation from where several of the Lobos finished and the front of the pack. With more experience and training, some of these runners see a huge leap in their finishing position as soon as next year, which could put the team back in position to compete for championships once again.
Up Next
The Lobos will head to Logan, UT for the NCAA Mountain Regional Championships on November 11th. The women have probably done enough to warrant an at-large bid to the NCAA Championships, but just to make sure, it would be nice to see them earn one of the auto-bids from this event. For the men, the goal will once again be to show improvement, both in terms of running individually and as a team. A strong finish would give them some good momentum heading into next year.