A look at the UNM Lobo Invitational

Last year on this weekend, Paxton Smith was a contributing member of the Mountain Vista varsity at the St. Vrain Invitational. This year, he's one of Vista Nation's go-to guys in Albuquerque. Photo by Alan Versaw.

Normally, an out-of-state meet wouldn't hold that much interest here in Colorado, but the fact is that three Colorado teams are heading to Albuquerque for this event, offering us a nice window on the relative strength of some Colorado and New Mexico programs early in the season.

Rumbling down I-25 will be 5A #1 and #6 ranked Mountain Vista, 4A #7 and #3 ranked The Classical Academy, and 2A Peyton, a team receiving votes in the 2A rankings. This represents Colorado's largest-ever representation in the high school portion of the meet.

In a couple of weeks, New Mexico returns the favor when Albuquerque Academy drives up I-25 to take part in the Liberty Bell Invitational.

The meet features all of the large and most competitive Albuquerque schools, plus traditional New Mexico powers such as Rio Rancho, Cleveland, and Los Alamos. Slightly over 30 teams will be stepping up to what figures to be a crowded finish line.

The meet runs at the UNM North Golf Course. And, although the elevation of the course is slightly over 5000 feet, it should run fairly fast. The surface is entirely short grass and dirt and is relatively level. 

Mountain Vista brings only their varsity sevens to the UNM meet, while TCA and Peyton are bringing their entire teams. A realistic view of things pegs Mountain Vista as the boys favorite--though not without threats--and the Mountain Vista and TCA girls as potentially very competitive teams where the meet crown is concerned. But all that is highly speculative as it is very early in the season for the Colorado teams and the season opener for almost all of the NM teams attending the meet. That means there's a lot to learn yet for all the teams involved and "favorite" kind of status is more of a hunch than a settled reality.

Colorado Track XC will be on-hand with photos and videos in addition to the written coverage of the meet. Meet results, photos, and videos will go up as soon as that becomes logistically possible with the travel involved, but not later than Sunday.

2013 UNM Lobo results