COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. – New Mexico’s Habtom Samuel and Pamela Kosgei have been named the 2026 Mountain West Men’s and Women’s Indoor Track & Field Student-Athletes of the Year, respectively, as voted on by the league’s coaches.
The honor is awarded to the best male and female student-athletes in the Conference following the conclusion of the indoor season. This marks the second time each have received the Conference’s top indoor award after Samuel earned the honor as a freshman in 2024 and Kosgei garners the nod for a second consecutive year.
Samuel turned in another stellar campaign that saw him go undefeated against collegiate competition and culminated in a national title in the men’s 5,000-meter race (13:36.58) at the NCAA Indoor Championship in Fayetteville. It marked his second national championship of the 2025-26 academic year after he claimed the 2025 Men’s Cross Country title in the fall, while it is the first time the Mountain West has had men’s title winners at the national meet in back-to-back years since 2017-18 after Wyoming’s Daniel Reynolds won the weight throw a year ago.
The five-time Indoor All-American swept the 3,000-meter (7:48.35) and 5,000-meter races (13:30.40) at the Mountain West Conference Championships for a third straight year, breaking his own championship meet records in both events and collecting his third consecutive Outstanding Men’s Track Performer of the Meet honor.
During the season, the junior also set the MW’s all-time record in the 3,000-meter race with a time of 7:37.44 at the UW Husky Invitational in Seattle in February and owns three of the top-five 3,000-meter and 5,000 meter times in Mountain West history.
This is the eighth time a Lobo has earned the MW Men’s Student-Athlete of the Year honors overall.
On the women’s side, Kosgei earns New Mexico’s fourth MW Women’s Student-Athlete of the Year award and is one of just three Lobo women in program history to do so.
The Elgeyo-Marakwet County, Kenya, native led the New Mexico women to a second straight Mountain West Championship after the Lobos had gone 10 years without one prior to 2025.
Building on her outstanding freshman season a year ago, the sophomore repeated as the Mountain West Champion in the 3,000-meter (8:58.58) and 5,000-meter races (15:32.15) at the Conference championship, breaking her own meet records she set at the 2025 Conference meet. She also collected her first Outstanding Women’s Track Performer of the Meet at the conclusion of the 2026 meet.
At the NCAA Indoor Championship, Kosgei captured a pair of First-Team All-American honors, finishing as the national runner-up in the 3,000-meter race (8:43.86) and placing third overall in the 5,000-meter race (15:07.76) for the second consecutive season.
