GRAND JUNCTION, Colo.— The Colorado Mesa University Mavericks will send seven student-athletes to the NCAA Division II Indoor Track & Field Championships, which begin Thursday at the Birmingham CrossPlex in Birmingham, Alabama.  The contingent is the largest that the Mavericks have ever sent to an national indoor meet and includes five women and two men.
 
The Maverick women have three women qualified in three different individual events and will also field a team in the 4x400-meter relay.  CMU will be represented in two men's events.
 
Live results throughout the 3-day meet, which runs through Saturday, can be accessed here.
 
A live stream will also be available at www.ncaa.com and Maverick fans can check www.cmumavericks.com for daily recaps.
 
Schedule
 
Here is a look at the Mavericks' schedule (all times listed are Mountain Time).  Their respective seeds coming into the meet are in parenthesis.
 
Thursday, March 11^th
Women's Pentathlon- 10:30 a.m. – Mica Jenrette (10^th)

Friday, March 12^th
Men's High Jump- 10:30 a.m. – Justin Thompson (T-6^th)
Men's Mile (Prelims)- 1 p.m. – Tony Torres (5^th)
Women's High Jump – 3:30 p.m.- Josie Coffey (T-11^th)
Women's 200m (Prelims)- 7:25 p.m.- Sierra Arceneaux (7^th)
 
Saturday, March 13^th
Men's Mile (Final)- 1 p.m. – Tony Torres
Women's 200m (Final)- Sierra Arceneaux
Women's 4x400m Relay – 6:20 p.m. (6^th)
 
Historic Relay
 
The 4x400-meter relay team, which includes Arceneaux, Jenrette, McKenna Molder and Jill Payne, will be the first Maverick relay to ever compete at the NCAA Division II Indoor Championships.  Arceneaux and Payne were also members of the 2019 outdoor 4x100-meter relay team, which was CMU's first ever national qualifying team.  That team finished 11^th.
 
Debuts
 
The other five Mavericks will be making their NCAA Division II Championship debuts.  Arceneaux, will also be making her individual event debut.
 
Top Two
 
All of the national-qualifying Mavericks have either posted the school-record or the No. 2 ranking mark on the all-time CMU top-10 performers' charts this season.
 
Jenrette set a school-record score of 3,560 points to win the Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference title in the pentathlon.  That mark bettered the 7-year old former record of 3,487 points that had been set by Bacall Sterling at the 2014 RMAC Championships.
 
Jenrette also helped the Mavericks smash the 4x400-meter relay record as they posted a RMAC-winning time of 3:52.62, more than three seconds faster than the previous standard of 3:55.75, which had been run by Molder, Jazmyne Reining, Haley Golden and Jill Payne on Dec. 8, 2018 in Colorado Springs.
 
Coffey also won the RMAC title in the high jump and set a school-record mark of 1.72 meters (5-7.75) in her collegiate debut at the Western Slope Challenge on Feb. 5.
 
Arceneaux's RMAC-winning 200-meter title of 24.68 seconds moved her up two spots to second on the Mavs' all-time performers list, only behind school-record holder Whitney Rowe, the most decorated Maverick woman in program-history with four all-America honors.
 
On the men's side, Justin Thompson won the RMAC title after clearing a season-best 2.11 meters (6-11) at the Colorado Running Company UCCS Open.  That personal-best clearance ranks him second in program history, only behind 2019 NCAA Outdoor National Champion Ethan Harris, who cleared 2.15 meters (7-0.5) during the 2018-19 indoor season.
 
Tony Torres won the mile at the RMAC Championships with a time of 4:10.91, which is the second fastest flat time in program history.  However, his converted time of 4:04.39, is substantially faster than the school-record of 4:09.33, set by John Cusick at sea-level and on a banked track at the 2016 NCAA Indoor Championships in Pittsburg, Kansas.  Torres also set a school-record in the 3K (8:20.35) and anchored the Mavericks distance medley relay team to a school-record smashing time of 10:15.08 at the conference meet.
 
Medal Haul leads to program records
 
The Mavericks combined to win a program-record eight events at the RMAC Championships nearly two weeks ago at the Feb. 27-29 meet in Spearfish, South Dakota.  The Maverick women won five different events and claimed  nine total medals gold, silver and bronze medals as they scored a program-record smashing 110 team points to finish an all-time best second in the team standings.
 
The CMU men also won three events and had three third-place finishes to earn six total medals.   They took fifth with 67 team points, their second best point total in program-history.  The Maverick men had never previously won more than two events at an RMAC Indoor Championship (2019) but did win four events that year at the outdoor meet.
 
The RMAC champions on the women's side were Arceneaux in the 200 (24.68), Molder in the 400 (57.20), Coffey in the high jump (1.67m/5-5.75), Jenrette in the pentathlon (3560) and the 4x400-meter relay team (3:52.62).  The Maverick women had never won more than two events at a previous RMAC Championship and nearly doubled their all-time RMAC event-winning total from seven to 12.
 
Meanwhile, Arceneaux, who contributed a team-leading 20.5 team points, when considering her share of the relay points, took second in the 60 meters (7.59) while Payne did the same in the 400 (57.20).  Meanwhile, Chian DeLoach claimed a pair of bronze medals taking third in both the long jump (5.53m/18-1.75) and triple jump (11.80m/38-8.75).
 
On the men's side, Torres (4:10.91-Mile) and Thompson (2.06m/6-9-High Jump) followed Brock Murphy, the weight throw champion (16.97m/55-8.25) into the winner's circle.  Murphy's win was the first of the entire meet and set the tone.
 
Meanwhile, Nate Hanson, Hayden Riley and distance medley relay all won bronze medals with third place finishes.  Hanson posted a time of 8.19 seconds in the 60-meter hurdles to move into the No. 2 spot in program history while Riley posted a mark of 15.93 meters (52-3.25) in the shot put to break his own school-record, set at the season-opening Western Slope Challenge on Feb. 5.
 
The distance medley relay team, which included Jerod Kuhn, Kelsey Montague, Jake Valdez and Tony Torres posted a time of 10:15.08, more than eight second quicker than the 8-year old former CMU standard of 10:23.67, which had been posted by current assistant coach Shane Niksic, Michael Petherick, Alex Quintana and John Cusick.
 
All-Region Honors
 
The U.S. Track & Field and Cross Country Coaches Association announced their all-region honors last week.  The Mavericks had ten different athletes combine for 15 such honors.  Click here to read more about those honors.
 
All eight of the Maverick women, who combined for 13 total honors were first-time all-region selections.  Torres is also a first-time all-region selection while Thompson has now earned the honor for two years in a row.
 
CMU's women had never earned more than four all-region honors in the same season prior to this.  That previous record came last year when three athletes combined for four certificates.
 
Up Next
 
This weekend's meet will conclude the indoor portion of the season.  The qualifying athletes will then join their teammates in preparing for the start of the outdoor season, which will be Mar. 26-27, when the Mavericks host the first of two home meets at their new on-campus track and field complex.