New Mexico true: Habtom Samuel's NCAA Championship leads banner day for Lobos

COLUMBIA, Mo. — The overcast sky above the pristine Gans Creek Park course on Saturday morning had a noticeable shimmer.

Sure, it was wet, it was muddy and temperatures were in the 40s. But that sky ...

On the ground below, hundreds of the best collegiate runners were competing in the 2025 NCAA Division I Cross Country Championship.

In the men’s 10K championship, the lead pack was far more congested than anyone anticipated. Then, with a little less than 2 kilometers remaining, just above one of the course’s soft, rolling hills, that silver sky was interrupted by a burst of turquoise — a juxtaposition of colors as brilliant as the jewelry being sold on the Santa Fe Plaza or in Albuquerque’s Old Town.

It was, indeed, a very New Mexico sight.

And it was, indeed, Habtom Samuel, the University of New Mexico third-year runner, clad in turquoise and red with a white baseball cap on backward, who had pulled away from the pack and would crush the competition in the home stretch. Samuel, the runner-up the past two seasons, would not be denied a championship again.

“I’ve been very close — runner-up these past years,” Samuel told the Journal after becoming the first Lobo to win a men’s cross country championship, finishing the 10K course in a time of 28 minutes, 33.9 seconds.

“This was my time. I’m really happy. This is God’s plan. Finally, I just made it. I finished. I got the title to bring to Albuquerque.”

Samuel’s victory lap, so to speak, may have led the way, but the Lobo pack was strong Saturday. Four UNM men occupied top 20 finishes (Collins Kiprotich, eighth; Evans Kiplagat, 13th; Vincent Chirchir, 20th; and Mathew Kosgei, 51st), giving the Lobos a score of 82 points, good for second place.

The Lobo women also stood on the podium, taking fourth place (cross country honors the top four teams as “podium” finishers).

The Lobos were seventh (women) and ninth (men) in last year’s event, which was the first time UNM had two top 10 finishes in the same season.

“To finish as the only NCAA Division I program to double trophy, I mean, it just speaks to New Mexico cross country/track and field and what we’re all about,” said a beaming Darren Gauson, the third-year UNM coach — one of the sport’s most respected rising stars who took the program torch handed him by former coach Joe Franklin and has run with it to unprecedented heights.

“We’re just going to keep our foot on the gas and try and come back and win two (championships next year),” he said.

Oklahoma State took the men’s team title with one of the sport’s more dominant days in recent memory — 57 points with finishes of fourth, fifth, sixth, 12th and 34th.

The women’s team title was claimed by North Carolina State, followed by BYU and Oregon before the Lobos, whose top finisher was Pamela Kosgei — the international star, two-time National Outdoor Track and Field champion (10,000 meters and 5,000 meters), and the national cross-country runner-up last season.

Kosgei, who was throwing up Saturday morning and clearly not her usual charismatic self, managed to clock a time of 19:02.8 on the 6K women’s course for 17th place.

“She’s a trooper,” Gauson said of Kosgei, who was bundled up in a large coat and, while present with her teammates for the awards ceremony, was hardly able to participate.

“She put the team before herself today, and I’m really, really proud of our women.”

Meanwhile, the legend of Habtom Samuel — one of the most decorated Lobo athletes (national champion in track’s distance races and numerous All-America honors) who has had a somewhat adversity-filled career — grew by leaps and bounds.

After averaging 2 minutes, 53 seconds per kilometer over the first 8,000 meters of the race on Saturday, Samuel somehow had it in him to rattle off times of 2:37.4 and 2:44.6 in the final two 1,000-meter splits — his two fastest splits of the entire race.

“I have the endurance more than anyone, I can say that,” Samuel said. “I just run very hard. By the time I got to the front, I was just telling myself, I’m going to run hard. I’m gonna break those guys and just keep this fast pace. And I did it. That was the plan.”

In a postrace media scrum while donning a bright yellow New Mexico state flag over his shoulders, Samuel was asked multiple times how tightly his running shoes were laced.

In last year’s championship, Samuel was spiked by another runner about a mile into the race. Instead of retrieving the shoe, he finished second with one shoe and one bloodied, bare foot, needing crutches just to do postrace interviews.

That, and a fall at last spring’s NCAA Outdoor Track & Field Championships, have weighed on his mind for a year.

“I just used it as a motivation this past year,” Samuel told the Journal while standing near the award ceremony stage where two young race fans from Missouri held a sign that read, “Haptom (sic) Keep the Pace, and the Shoes!!”

Samuel autographed the sign and posed for pictures with the two fans.

“I used those things as a bridge, just to motivate myself and say, OK, I finished runner-up with one shoe last year. So this year, I’m healthy. This was my fate this time. So I’m gonna get it today by any means. That was only on my mind.”

Samuel, a junior from Keren, Eritrea, will likely be back to defend his title. He said he does not plan to turn pro until after he finishes his education.