NMJC (M-T&F) Set to Begin 2026 Indoor Season
The 2026 New Mexico Junior College men's track & field season begins Friday, Jan. 16 in Lubbock, Texas.
The Thunderbirds will be competing in the Corky Classic Jan 16-17 at the Texas Tech Sports Performance Center.
NMJC's 2025 track season featured the T-Birds finishing national runner-up in both the indoor and outdoor seasons for the second straight year.
The T-Birds return 18 sophomores from the 2024 national runner-up squad, seven of whom were All-Americans. The Thunderbird sophomores are led by 60m national champion David Nyamufarira and 2x pole vault national champion Samuel Ospina.
Nyamufarira won the 60m title in 2025 with a time of 6.60. Ospina was the indoor national champ in the pole vault with a clearance of 5.12m and the outdoor champ with a vault of 5.06m.
"The Thunderbirds are excited to begin the indoor season," NMJC men's track & field head coach Terry VanLaningham said. "Our squad is closely balanced between returners and newcomers. The sophomore leadership should help our freshman to assimilate to collegiate competition rather quickly. We are on a journey to the championships in March. This is the first stop, and I believe it will be a good one. Last year was my first with the program. I'm confident that our experiences from 2025 will help us to have even better 2026."
NMJC has won a track & field trophy (top-3 finish) every year since 2023.
The meet begins on Friday with the field events from 3 p.m. - 6 p.m. CST. The running events start at 3:30 p.m. CST and finish around 9:30 p.m. CST. Saturday's field events start at 11 a.m. and go through 3:30 p.m. CST. The track events start at 11:30 a.m. and will conclude around 4:30 p.m. CST.
The meet will be streamed live on ESPN+. The schedule can be found by clicking here along with the heat sheets and live results.