For three years running the men’s and women’s cross country teams have been invited to the NCAA Cross Country Championship, with the women’s team finishing in the top ten overall for the second year in a row.
They raced in Terre Haute, Ind., on Monday, and the women’s team followed last year’s fifth-place finish with by grabbing ninth place overall. The men’s team snatched 31st place, down from finishing 16th in 2010.
The Lobos suffered setbacks on both sides throughout the season, but head coach Joe Franklin said he was glad to see the team compete on the big stage.
“They ran their heart out and sometimes it just doesn’t happen,” he said. “I’d rather have a chance than no chance at all.”
The women’s team expected to finish No. 2 in the country, but senior Ruth Senior said they weren’t disappointed.
“We didn’t finish as high as we hoped we would, but ninth in the country is not bad,” Senior said.
Senior led the Lobos with a time of 20:32 in 6-kilometer race and a 41st-place finish.
Last year, Senior finished 33rd place in the championship race, but ran 15 seconds faster this year. She said the competition ran stronger this season.
“It was so close and such an intense race,” Senior said. “The standards were very, very high this year.”
Senior Natalie Gray followed Senior in 81st, finishing in 20:53.
Senior Kirsty Milner and junior Imogen Ainsworth rounded out the top 100, finishing 91st and 94th respectively.
The Lobos finished in the top 10 despite five of their top seven runners battling injuries through the season.
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Junior Lacey Oeding suffered a stress fracture early in the year that kept her out for a long time, and junior Josephine Moultrie was bothered by a toe injury early in the season.
Gray dealt with anemia while senior Sarah Waldron was affected by an injury to her finger, and Senior suffered a hip injury that kept her out late in the season.
The men’s team ended the day in 31st place, despite losing its best runner about halfway through the 10-kilometer race.
UNM’s top runner, senior Ross Millington, suffered a foot infection the Tuesday before the meet. Franklin said he thought the antibiotics Millington was on altered his performance and rendered him unable to finish the race.
“Once that intensity happened at the national championship, at 6,000 meters, he started vomiting,” Franklin said. “Once they knew Ross was out, they all tried to step it up and give it their best shot.”
Junior Sean Stam led the Lobos, finishing 139th place with a time of 31:07.2 and senior Patrick Ortiz followed in 213th at 31:57.
Freshmen Pierre Malherbe and Michael Asay finished 236th and 238th, respectively.
Georgetown’s women’s team won the 2011 national championship and Wisconsin’s men’s team edged out back-to-back champion Oklahoma State to win the title.
The UNM women’s team loses four of its top runners at the end of the season in Senior, Gray, Waldron and Milner.
The men’s team returns all top runners except Ortiz.
Franklin said he hopes his team can stay healthy next season so it can finish stronger at the end of the year.
“We just have to figure out how to make sure we don’t get into those situations again,” he said.
