Colorado’s men and women are headed back into one of the toughest regional fields in the country, with NCAA Mountain Regional Championships set for Friday at the University of New Mexico.
The Buffaloes will send the No. 2 men’s team and No. 9 women’s team into a Mountain Region that is loaded from top to bottom. Four top-20 men’s teams are in the field, along with five top-20 women’s teams, making this a deep test before the NCAA Championships.
The women’s 6K race is scheduled for 11 a.m. MT, followed by the men’s 10K at noon MT.
Colorado arrives after a strong Big 12 Championships showing. The men won the conference title, while the women finished fourth.
Dominic Serem paced the Buffaloes on the men’s side with a second-place finish in 23:06.9. For the women, Sheylah Kurgat was the top Colorado finisher, placing eighth in 19:46.7 as the Buffs secured fourth overall.
Last season, both Colorado squads finished fourth at the Mountain Regional Championships to punch their tickets to the NCAA Championships. The women also owned the regional for a five-year stretch from 2013 through 2017, while the men claimed consecutive regional titles in 2014 and 2015, back when Colorado was in the Pac-12.
Friday’s races will be run at the UNM North Golf Course, which has served as New Mexico’s cross country home since 2000. The course is laid out almost entirely on grass across the fairways of the nine-hole layout and has hosted five NCAA Mountain Regional Championships since 2002, along with multiple Mountain West Championships, most recently in 2021.
The men’s and women’s fields include Air Force, BYU, Colorado, Colorado State, Montana State, Nevada, New Mexico, New Mexico State, Northern Arizona, Northern Colorado, Southern Utah, Texas Tech, Utah, Utah State, Utah Valley, UTEP and Weber State, along with Wyoming.
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