- Alice Wright Female Athlete of the Year
- Alice Wright Female Athlete of the Year
As the phrase goes, anything worth doing is worth doing twice.
Or, if you’re New Mexico track & field/cross country standout Alice Wright, anything worth doing is worth doing at least three times.
Wright raced to another superlative year for the Lobos during the 2016-17 cross country and track & field season, earning a third All-American honor in both disciplines.
One of the most decorated Lobos in program and university history, Wright has done practically everything for UNM. She’s won a national title, doing so in 2015 with the Lobo cross country team, and has continued to place among the best in the nation individually, as evidenced by her collection of All-American honors.
Wright started her 2016-17 campaign with a bang, racing to second place in back-to-back cross country meets at Notre Dame and Wisconsin. Easily two of the best meets outside of the national championships, Wright primed herself for another tremendous season of racing.
Coming off of those successes, she added back-to-back victories, winning the individual title at the Mountain West Championships — helping lead UNM to a ninth-straight conference championship — and the NCAA Mountain Region Championships.
For her wins, she was named both MW Women’s Student-Athlete of the Year for cross country and USTFCCCA Mountain Regional Female Athlete of the Year.
She then notched her third-straight All-American nod in cross country at the NCAA Championships, taking 19th overall and first on the team.
Because of her effort, the Lobo won placed seventh at the meet, extending their streak of top-10 finishes at the NCAA Championships to seven years in a row, the longest active streak in the nation.
Wright then turned her attention to the track, where she snapped up the victory in the 5,000-meter run at the Mountain West Indoor Track & Field Championships in Albuquerque.
She kept rolling during the outdoor season, setting the New Mexico record in the 10,000-meter run before sweeping the MW 5,000-meter titles with a win at the MW Outdoor Championships.
Wright then qualified to the NCAA Outdoor Championships and posted a third-straight All-American honor as she raced to a second-straight, second-place finish in the 10,000 at Hayward Field in Oregon.
She is just one of two athletes in the NCAA to earn All-American honors in the 10K each of the last three years, and is the first female athlete in New Mexico history to earn three straight All-American honors in the same event.
For good measure, Wright added a First-Team Academic All-America selection, as well, claiming the honor for the second year in a row. She is just the second athlete in program history with back-to-back First-Team selections.
But, if anything is worth doing once, it’s most certainly worth doing again. Just ask Alice Wright.
