COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo.— Colorado Mesa University pentathletes
Katie Thomson and
Hope Matteson both set NCAA Division II Championship provisional qualifying scores, two of the highlights of the day for the Colorado Mesa University track and field team, which combined for six such NCAA marks on the first day of the Colorado Running Company Pre-Holiday Invite & Multi, which got underway Friday here at UCCS' Mountain Lion Fieldhouse.
Thompson scored 3,583 points to move up two spots to third in CMU history and closed out the overall event with a time of two minutes, 22.70 seconds in the 800 to meters move into the No. 9 spot of the CMU performers' list for that discipline. She also set personal records in all four of the other and finished only behind two athletes from Division I Colorado.
Thompson, who surpassed her pentathlon PR by 419 points, turned in a time of 9.21 seconds in the 60-meter hurdles before turning in marks of 1.56 meters (5-1.25), 10.55 meters (34-7.5) and 5.41 meters (17-9) in the high jump, shot put and long jump, respectively.
Matteson also finished ninth in the field of 19 with a personal-best score of 3,263 points, which also surpassed the NCAA provisional qualifying standard. She had a 60-meter hurdle PR of 9.34 seconds.
Meanwhile, returning all-American
Dawson Heide stands in third place through four events of the men's heptathlon with 3,127 points. He had a NCAA provisional qualifying long jump mark of 7.13 meters (23-4.75) and set a shot put personal best of 13.21 meters (43-4.25).
Freshman teammate
Evan Atkin is in 11
th place with 2,704 points while
Levi Hoenninger is in 14
th with 2,529, one spot ahead of
Jameson Moore, who has 2,455 points.
Logan Hafey is in 17
th with 2,317 points.
Elsewhere, the Mavs had three NCAA provisional qualifying efforts in the men's long jump as
Justin Thompson,
Miller Jones and
Zace Buckhold placed fourth through sixth, respectively. Thompson, the reigning Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference Field Athlete of the Week jumped 7.28 meters (23-10.5) on his lone legal jump while Jones, a freshman, improved upon his mark from last week with an effort of 7.24 meters (23-9) to move up to second behind Thompson in program history. Buckhold jumped 7.22 meters (23-8.25) to rank third in CMU program history.
In the women's long jump, sophomore
Addy Kirkpatrick and freshman
Kylee Kielian both jumped into the No. 9 spot of CMU history with equal marks of 5.50 meters (18-0.5) to place sixth and seventh.
Lily Nieslanik also fared well with a jump of 5.48 meters (17-11.5) to place eighth while Venesa Handzhyiska was ninth with a jump of 5.31 meters (17-5).
The Bulgarian freshman also broke the 8-second mark in the 60 meters, finishing her preliminary heat in 7.97 seconds to place tenth.
Mia Munoz also contested both events running to a time of 8.19 seconds while jumping 5.21 meters (17-1).
Garrett Searls had the best men's finish, placing fourth with a clearance of 4.05 meters (13-3.25).
Rese McClinton-El also competed on Friday, placing 11
th in the long jump with a mark of 6.54 meters (21-5.25).
The Mavs will continue this meet on Saturday and also have over 40 athletes slated to compete at Western Colorado University's Mountaineer Open in Gunnison.
