UNM’s Kerr advances on Bowerman Watch List
Defending champion one of 10 Lobos to qualify for NCAA meet
INDIANAPOLIS — The University of New Mexico qualified four individuals and two relay teams for next week’s NCAA Indoor Track and Field Championships in College Station, Texas.
Josh Kerr, the defending indoor mile and outdoor 1,500 NCAA champion, leads the New Mexico group. On Thursday, he advanced in consideration for the Bowerman Award, the sport’s highest collegiate individual honor, as one of 10 men named to the pre-NCAA championships watch list.
Kerr is the top seed for the NCAA mile, and he returns next week to the same Texas A&M track on which he won the 2017 title. He can become the second Lobo (behind Lee Emanuel in 2009-10) to win consecutive NCAA titles.
The 10 Lobos — four individual qualifiers and the six qualifiers from the relays, including the No. 1-ranked men’s distance medley relay team — rank as the second-largest party ever qualified to the NCAA Championships in UNM history. The Lobos are sending at least four athletes to the indoor championships for the 10th consecutive year.
On the women’s side, NCAA individual crosscountry champion Ednah Kurgat and Weini Kelati are competing in the 3,000- and 5,000-meter runs.
Kurgat is seeded No. 2 in the 5K with a time of 15 minutes, 19.03 seconds that ranks seventh in NCAA history. She’s also seeded third in the 3K with a school-record clocking of 8:57.47. Kelati ranks No. 4 in the 5K(15:37.03) and No. 8 in the 3K (8:59.77).
Alice Wright is also slated to competed in the 5K, where she is seeded 15th (15:46.85). It’s the first time in program history three athletes have qualified to the NCAA Championships in the same event.
The relay team of Kieran Casey, Shalom Keller, Alondra Negron Texidor and Kurgat will be seeded third in the distance medley relay with a schoolrecord mark of 10:57.77.
Kerr also qualified in the distance medley relay, with Ian Crowe-Wright, Carlos Salcido and Michael Wilson as they look to validate their winning performance from the Mountain West Championships.
The quartet leads the NCAA’s rankings with an altitude-converted time of 9:24.73 that is superior to the standing NCAA record of 9:25.97 when the altitude conversion is applied. However, the conversion is only used for NCAA qualification, not for official records.
The top 16 individual athletes and the top 12 relay teams in every championship event advance to the national meet, which will be contested at Gilliam Indoor Track Stadium next Friday and Saturday.