The Aggie men's and women's cross country teams head to Albuquerque, N.M. this weekend for the NCAA Regional Meet. We spoke with one half of the Aggies' Co-WAC Coaches of the Year Paul Harkins about the team's preparation for the NCAA Regionals.

bleedCrimson.net: This weekend you head up to Albuquerque for the NCAA Regional Meet, what are you goals for the weekend?
Paul Harkins: It's the culmination of our season for the most part. I think we've got a chance of getting a couple girls to qualify for the National meet. We're looking to improve on what we did last year. I think we're capable of placing in the top 10 on both sides. If the men place 10th they're running really well and I think the women are capable of 8th but our goal is 7th. It's going to be tough but if we can do that it'll set us up really well for next year.

bc.net: The NCAA Regional meet for the Mountain region will be in Albuquerque, a place that you are very familiar with. What advantages does that give your team?
PH: Running in Albuquerque is almost like running at home for us. We have so many kids on our team from the Albuquerque area, I know we can have close to probably 30 parents up there. It's also a nice easy drive for the kids that aren't running. They'll all be up there to support the team. I think some of the track girls will come up to support the team. It's like running at home for us. We know the course well, we run it every year, it's a little bit different but we know the terrain well enough that we know what changes have been made and how that may affect us. It's essentially like running at home and we have a huge amount of support in that area up there. It's really exciting. It'll be a fun time regardless of outcome because bringing together all the parents and friends and family is always a lot of fun.  Continue Reading This Post >>

bleedCrimson.net will be conducting regular interviews with the New Mexico State cross country coaching staff as the Aggies enter their third season under head coach Orin Richburg. We spoke with assistant coach Paul Harkins about the men's and women's cross country squads and the women's victory and the men's 7th place finish at the meet in Santa Clara, Calif. as well as their outlook for the WAC Championship meet at the end of the month.

bleedCrimson.net: Talk about your kids' performance this past weekend at Santa Clara. The women's team won the meet and the men's team finished five places better than last year at 7th.
Paul Harkins: The men are still running tough. They had a five spot improvement from last year. They were 12th a year ago and finished 7th this year out of 17 teams. We had five guys run faster than our number one did a year ago. They're steadily getting better. With such a young group it's very exciting to see and project what they're going to do in a couple of years. We had five freshmen, four sophomores and one junior in our top 10 that we took to Santa Clara this weekend. They had a good meet. They're capable of more but we're going to rest up the next couple of weeks and get them ready for conference. We'll cut back their mileage just a little bit and get them ready to go.

On the women's side, they were absolutely fantastic. The women were fifth a year ago and this year they came in and had an absolutely dominating performance. They won the meet by 40 points over San Francisco and it was exciting. We had three girls in the top seven and one more in the top 20 and our fifth scorer was in the top 25. It was very exciting. Just to see where these kids have come from, where the team has come from and to go out and have a win at a major invitational like that is very exciting.  Continue Reading This Post >>

bleedCrimson.net will be conducting regular interviews with the New Mexico State cross country coaching staff as the Aggies enter their third season under head coach Orin Richburg. We spoke with assistant coach Paul Harkins about the men's and women's cross country squads and some of their team's performance against UNM as well as a preview of their meet in Santa Clara, Calif.

bleedCrimson.net: Your thoughts on the dual meet with UNM on Friday outside of Elephant Butte?
Paul Harkins: It was a good race. It gave us an additional opportunity for our second group of kids to get an additional race opportunity and fight for a spot to go to some of the later season races. We did pretty well. Kevin Palmer ran unattached again, we're red-shirting him this year. But he led us on the men's side and was third overall behind two guys from UNM. Victor Sanchez was our next guy so Victor earned a spot to go with us to the Santa Clara meet this weekend.

On the women's side Emma Hamilton and April Lewis were our top two finishers. A couple of the women had some falls, it was kind of a rough course, kind of rocky. April took a tumble but she was right with Emma at the turn and then on the way back she lost a little bit of ground because of the fall. I think April definitely deserves, we're giving her another chance to run this weekend at Santa Clara. She and Emma are going as well.  Continue Reading This Post >>

bleedCrimson.net will be conducting regular interviews with the New Mexico State cross country coaching staff as the Aggies enter their third season under head coach Orin Richburg. We spoke with assistant coach Paul Harkins about the men's and women's cross country squads and their performance Cowboy Jamboree in Stillwater, Okla. as well as their upcoming head to head duel against in-state rival New Mexico.

bleedCrimson.net: Your thoughts on this past weekend's performance at the Cowboy Jamboree in Stillwater? Your men's team finished 11th at the meet.
Paul Harkins: They did run pretty well. They ran tough. Aside from all the scoring errors. As far as team results go it was pretty close with a couple other teams. I think we beat a couple teams that are ranked within their respective regions and we weren't too far behind Texas Tech which is nice because they're in our region. I think we definitely closed the gap. I think we're capable of a lot more. They ran tough, they ran gutsy. Ian Ruybalid was phenomenal for us, he ran a 25:22 on a pretty tough course. Kevin Taft had a great race for us. He was our 5th guy, he's been running kind of 8/9 for us typically but he just closed like a demon over the second half of the course and really picked off a lot of guys in the second half and ran really well.

bc.net: All the men finished in the Top 100 individually, talk about what that means for your kids.
PH: It's definitely something we probably wouldn't have been able to do two years ago. It shows the progress that we've made. I think we're still capable of a lot more. Ian was in the 50s and I think if we're going to be real successful come conference time we're going to need to close the gap up on Ian a little bit but I think we're capable of that too. Ideally we'll have five guys within a 30 to 40 second period. If we do that we probably would have had five guys within the Top 85 at that meet. That meet was huge, I think there were 30 teams competing. Any time you can go and finish in the top third of that many schools out there, for a building program that's pretty good success.  Continue Reading This Post >>

bleedCrimson.net will be conducting regular interviews with the New Mexico State cross country coaching staff as the Aggies enter their third season under head coach Orin Richburg. We spoke with assistant coach Paul Harkins about the men's and women's cross country squads and their performance at the Kachina Classic, the men's team earning a No. 15 ranking in the Mountain Region and their upcoming meet in Stillwater, Okla. in the Cowboy Jamboree

bleedCrimson.net: Your men's team earned a No. 15 ranking in the Mountain Region in the polls that were released this week.
Paul Harkins: The men are well improved team this year. I think it's deserving and I think it's something to build on for the rest of the season. I know we're capable of more than Top 15 but it's nice to be recognized in the region with a ranking like that.  Continue Reading This Post >>

bleedCrimson.net will be conducting regular interviews with the New Mexico State cross country coaching staff as the Aggies enter their third season under head coach Orin Richburg. We spoke with assistant coach Paul Harkins about the men's and women's cross country squads and got the coaching staff's outlook on the 2009 season. The Aggies return just about everyone from their 2008 squad and have high expectations for this year's group.

bleedCrimson.net: Talk about your squad. You lost just two seniors on the men's side and one on the women's side.
Paul Harkins: We definitely loaded up. The men we brought in six new freshmen to replace the two seniors and three of them are capable right off the bat of running in our top five. On the women's side we brought in six or seven new freshmen also and right now we have seven girls of capable of running as well as our top three did last year.  Continue Reading This Post >>

bleedCrimson.net will be interviewing the coaches from the men's and women's cross country teams throughout their season. This week we spoke with assistant coach Paul Harkins about the men's and women's teams upcoming meet at the NCAA regionals in Fort Collins, CO. The men's team will feature Josh Sifuentes, Ian Ruybalid, Michael Hart, Patrick Hernandez, Anthony Ellis, James Nduati and Marcus Porter. The women's team will feature Ingrid Flores, Brandi Gutierrez, Amy Arenas, Brittany Hurtado, Christina Herrera, Rayanna Fernandez and Jessica Payne.

bleedCrimson.net: Your team didn't quite have the finish that you wanted at the WAC Championship meet a couple weeks ago, what have you been able to take away from that to help you prepare for this week?
Paul Harkins: We've talked to everybody about how, yeah, we were a little disappointed at WAC but now is a great opportunity to redeem ourselves and run the way we're capable of doing. That's kind of what we've been talking about, using this as another opportunity for redemption. We're facing two of the three WAC teams that beat us so it'll be nice to get another shot at them.  Continue Reading This Post >>

The Aggies are hosting the 2008 Men's and Women's Cross Country Championships on Saturday at the NMSU Golf Course. We talked with three of the key members of the women's team, junior Ingrid Flores, sophomore Brandi Gutierrez and sophomore Amy Arenas to get their thoughts on the season, their improvements and their thoughts on the championship meet.

bleedCrimson.net: Ingrid, you won the outdoor 5k at the WAC tournament and you were back-to-back WAC XC athlete of the week, then a couple weekends ago you were 6th at the Santa Clara invitational with a time of 17:38, almost a minute and a half faster than your result last year. What's been the biggest factor in your improvement and success this season.
Ingrid Flores: I think the biggest fact was just a mental reconstruction. I just went back and looked at all my races last year and I just said to myself I wanted to do a bit better and I wanted to improve in that. It all started last winter for me, that whole radical change.  Continue Reading This Post >>

The Aggies are hosting the 2008 Men's and Women's Cross Country Championships on Saturday at the NMSU Golf Course. We talked with three of the key members of the men's team, senior Josh Sifuentes, sophomore Michael Hart and freshman Ian Ruybalid to get their thoughts on the season, their improvements and their thoughts on the championship meet.

bleedCrimson.net: Ian, What's it been like for you coming in and being able to have an immediate impact as a freshman?
Ian Ruybalid: It's been great. When I first came here my goal was just to be in the top five. I had no idea I'd finish in the top three on the team in every meet. I've been really pleased with it. I've improved a lot since high school and so I'm really excited about that too.

bc.net: What are you looking forward to most in your first WAC Cross Country Championship meet?
IR: I'm looking forward to the level of the competition. I really want to get Top 14 hopefully. I've just gotta race smart and I want my team to do well too.  Continue Reading This Post >>

bleedCrimson.net will be interviewing the coaches from the men's and women's cross country teams throughout their season. This week we spoke with assistant coach Paul Harkins and assistant coach Meaghan Gregory and talked about the upcoming WAC championship meet being hosted in Las Cruces.

bleedCrimson.net: This weekend you host the WAC Cross Country Championship. Talk about the preparation for this week. This is what you've been working toward all season.
Paul Harkins: We've been preparing for this all year long. This has been our focus race for us since last year. Since track season ended we've been looking forward to conference cross country and thinking about what we can do. The preparation has been there, the kids are feeling good, they're very well rested. Their mileage has dropped significantly. I think we're definitely ready to go.
Meaghan Gregory: It's total cliche but championships are won in the offseason. All of our kids worked hard over the summer and came in in great shape and they've been able to up the ante this year because of that. We're ready to go.  Continue Reading This Post >>