LOBOS TAKE AIM AT CROSS COUNTRY TITLE
Women are ranked 7th in championship race
Weini Kelati and her UNM teammates will run for individual and team titles at NCAA championships on Saturday in Terre Haute, Indiana.
As the cross country season has progressed, University of New Mexico coach Joe Franklin has been fine with how sometimes there is a lighthearted calmness to the Lobos’ workouts. He welcomes it.
The truth of the matter is the intensity is at an all-time high when the gun goes off to signal the biggest race of the season for the UNM women’s cross country team. That will take place on Saturday morning at the NCAA Championship in Terre Haute, Indiana.
Franklin believes the Lobos, ranked No. 7, are plenty capable of winning their third championship in the past five seasons. They took home the national title in 2015 and 2017. Last year, they finished second behind Colorado.
“It’s the first time we have been fit and healthy all year,” Franklin said on Tuesday. “We didn’t have some kids earlier in the year. We had some kids who were in the world championships or that were sick. Everybody is healthy. Literally heart rates are low. … We’re going in for the first time with everybody healthy and excited, getting ready to go.”
Yes, Franklin does check the heart rate of his runners. He is, as he has said in the past, “methodical,” in nearly everything he does, and the UNM women’s cross country team is the same.
The Lobos knew what was coming once they advanced to their 12th consecutive national championship race. As is tradition for the Lobos in the NCAA Championship, it became time to break out the turquoise uniforms.
Franklin said they wear turquoise only for the national championship race “to honor the university, our city and our state.”
Perhaps that was motivation for them in their previous two races. The results didn’t seem to be indicative of a team that was actually holding back to save energy for the national championship race.
The Lobos won their 12th straight Mountain West Conference title on Nov. 1 with junior Weini Kelati leading the way. She successfully defended her individual championship by finishing the 6K course in Logan, Utah, in 19 minutes, 11.2 seconds, shattering the MWC record by 26 seconds.
The UNM women had three runners finish in the top five, including runner-up Ednah Kurgat. The Lobos’ potent 1-2 punch again went 1-2, respectively in the NCAA Mountain Regional in Salt Lake City last week, when UNM finished second as a team behind BYU.
Kelati repeated as regional champion, finishing in 18:58.7 and 57.2 seconds faster than the runnerup, Kurgat. Kelati, the 2018 NCAA Championship runner-up, recorded the fastest time among all of the nine NCAA regional winners, and the closest was Hannah Reichardt of Albany in 19:29.4 in the Northeast Regional Championship.
“You have a goal to hold back and you talk about those things, but once the gun goes off they can’t hear us,” said Franklin, whose team will not be holding back on Saturday. “They’re in the zone. They’re chasing a golf cart. They’re doing whatever there is. You just don’t know what is going to happen. One of the things we don’t want to do is we don’t want to over-coach.”
Kelati, Kurgat, Adva Cohen and Hannah Nuttall received all-region honors this past week for finishing in the top 25 among the nine regional sites across the country.
For the regional, Franklin actually held out two runners, including freshman Gracelyn Larkin and redshirt junior Alondra Negrón, who will make her season debut on Saturday to run with teammates Brenda Rosales-Coria, Juanita Johnson and Alexandra Harris.
The Lobos had their final workout on Tuesday before leaving for Indiana on Thursday. Franklin was asked how would he keep his runners relaxed, yet focused on the national championship race.
“Well, I get to show them where I grew up, so that should make them laugh,” said Franklin, who grew up in Greencastle, Indiana, where the Lobos stayed on Thursday and Friday before driving to the race in Terre Haute on Saturday. “We’ll just take it lighthearted.”