INDIANAPOLIS— The Colorado Mesa University track and field teams had six athletes selected to the NCAA Division II Indoor Championships, it was announced by the NCAA Division II Track & Field Committee on Tuesday afternoon.
 
The Maverick men will have a program-record five representatives in six events while the Maverick women will be represented by returning all-American Mica Jenrette in the pentathlon.  The men's qualifiers are Elijah Williams, who will run both the 60 and 200-meter dashes, Tony Torres (mile), Justin Thompson (long jump), Gunner Rigsby (triple jump) and Dawson Heide (heptathlon).
 
The meet is next Friday and Saturday (Mar. 11-12) in Pittsburg, Kansas in Pittsburg State University's Robert W. Plaster Center.
 
Jenrette, Thompson and Torres were also selected to the 2021 national indoor championships while Rigsby joined Thompson, Torres and other Mavericks at the 2021 NCAA Division II Outdoor championships.  Williams, who was recently named as the Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference Championship Athlete of the Meet, and Heide will be national championship rookies.
 
A total of 540 participants, 270 men and 270 women, will compete in the championships. Student-athletes qualified for the championships by reaching a provisional standard established for each event and by being amongst the top athletes on the national performance lists in their respective events.

The complete list of qualifiers is available here.  Heat sheets will be available by Monday (Mar. 7) and live results can both be found on the same website.  The meet will be live streamed on www.ncaa.com and tickets are available through the championship information page.
 
Men

Elijah Williams (R-So., Aurora, Colo./Gateway HS) – Williams set school-record times of 6.77 (60) and 21.35 seconds this season (200), going on to win the RMAC title in both events on Saturday in Gunnison, Colorado, en-route to RMAC Championship Athlete of the Meet accolades.  He is seeded eighth (tie) for the national meet in the 200 with his converted time of 21.26 seconds, set at the RMAC Championships, when he finished in 21.51 seconds at altitude and on the 200-meter flat track.  He is seeded 17^th in the 60 meters with his time, set at the season-opening Mel Tjeerdsma Classic.
Tony Torres (R-Jr., Oro Valley, Ariz./Ironwood Ridge HS)- Torres will be making his third successive national meet appearance after taking second in the mile at last year's indoor championships and third in the 1,500 meters at the 2021 outdoor championships.  A 2-time all-American, Torres smashed the CMU record, running a time of 4:00.86 at the national meet.  He also holds the CMU record in the 800 and 3,000 meters as well as the distance medley relay.  He is seeded tenth in the mile this year with his converted time of 4:03.79, set at Mountaineer Open & Multi in Gunnison.  He only ran the 3,000 meters at last week's RMAC Championships, finishing sixth.

Justin Thompson (R-So., Carbondale, Colo./MSU Denver/Roaring Fork HS)- Thompson earned a pair of U.S. Track & Field and Cross Country Coaches Association All-America honors in 2021 in the high jump, but has focused his efforts on the long jump this season.  He posted a mark of 7.57 meters (24 feet, 10 inches) at the Mines Winter Classic on Feb. 4.  He is seeded sixth for the national championships with that mark and finished third in that event at the RMAC Championships and was named as the RMAC Summit Award Winner for having the highest GPA (4.00) of any athlete at the championships. 

Gunner Rigsby (R-Jr., Grand Junction, Colo./Colorado/Fruita Monument HS)- Rigsby smashed his own school and Mountaineer Field House record to win the RMAC triple jump title with a mark of 15.91 meters (52-2.5).  He is seeded second with that mark and finished seventh in the outdoor version of the event at last year's national championships in Allendale, Michigan to earn USTFCCCA All-America honors.  He did not compete last indoor season.

Dawson Heide (R-So., Bayfield, Colo./Bayfield HS)- Heide won the RMAC heptathlon title last weekend and is seeded 11^th with his converted score of 5,331 points.  His actual total of 5,307 points from the RMAC Championships ranks him second in program history, behind only 2018 NCAA Division II National Champion Spencer Jahr.

Women

Mica Jenrette (R-So., Los Lunas, N.M./Los Lunas HS) – Jenrette will return to the NCAA Division II National Championships after setting a school-record to place fifth in the heptathlon.  She then ran a leg on CMU's 4x400-meter relay team that won the national title.  She claimed her third successive RMAC multi-event title last week, winning the pentathlon crown with a score of 3,594 points, second best in program-history only behind her 2021 national championship performance of 3,781.  She is seeded 14^th with her converted score of 3,616 points.