The UNM track and field team will head to El Paso, Texas for the UTEP Springtime Invitational on Saturday.
It's only the second outdoor competition of the year and if the indoor season is any indication, UNM will be an extremely competitive team in the Mountain West Conference.
Last month, the Lobo men turned in their best Mountain West Conference Championship performance in 14 years with 66 points, which is the highest score since the 118-point, second-place finish in the WAC in 1990.
UNM's 66 points was good enough for fifth place overall. The Lobo women placed sixth with 23 points.
Junior distance runner Matt Gonzales was 0.07 seconds from winning his first conference title in the 3,000-meter race, while senior Mark Johnson set a personal record in the pole vault en route to the MWC heptathlon title.
Johnson is coming off a severe back injury from last season, which he says was his worst season in four years.
Get content from The Daily Lobo delivered to your inbox
Despite the stellar indoor season, assistant coach Mark Henry said the Lobos do their best work in the outdoor season, mainly because UNM has no indoor practice facility.
The Lobo's outdoor season got off to a good start last weekend in Arizona, where five UNM athletes already qualified for NCAA regionals.
Although she didn't qualify for regionals, sophomore Kimilia Davis paced the UNM women with a first-place finish in the 400-meter open in 56.85. It was Davis' first career outdoor win.
"I love running in the hot weather," she said. "The track felt really good, and I had a strong finish, so I felt really good about the win."
Davis said running outdoors is extremely different from running on an indoor track.
She said running indoors takes a lot more strategy because the track is smaller, and the runners are bunched together. But the 5-foot-1 Davis said since she is shorter than other competitors, she can usually handle the curves better.
Davis also competes in the 200 open, the 4 x 400-meter relay and the 4 x 100-meter relay. Henry said she is usually the first runner in both competitions.
"We change it around a little bit, but it depends on the relay," he said. "With our 4 x 1 right now, we go with our best starter. Kimilia's our best starter on the women's side easily."
Davis said she is especially looking forward to this weekend's meet because she set a personal record last season at Kidd Field, and she plans to make that a tradition.
"I'm faster than I was at this time last year, and this is a fast track," she said. "Last year I (set a personal record) in the 200 on this track. I just hope our 400 team can better our time from last week, and I'm hoping that my 400 time is a personal record for the season."
