PUEBLO, Colo.— Colorado Mesa University's Dawson Heide set a school-record in the long jump, two other personal-best times while matching another en-route to the day one lead in the decathlon the NCAA Division II National Championships, which got underway on Thursday here at the CSU Pueblo ThunderBowl.
 
The Bayfield, Colorado native who is making his first NCAA Outdoor Championship appearance after placing fifth and tenth in the heptathlon at the last two NCAA Division II Indoor Championships, scored 4,090 points in the first five events on Thursday.  He fared best in the 15-man field in both the 100 meters and the long jump, the first two events, and recorded a leap of 7.57 meters (24 feet, 10 inches) to break teammate Justin Thompson's wind-legal Maverick record by nine centimeters (3 inches) after running to a 100-meter time of 10.74 seconds, to move into the No. 8 spot of CMU history for that discipline.
 
Thompson also had a wind-aided long jump mark of 7.57 meters and an all-conditions mark of 7.58 meters last year.
 
Heide later posted a personal-record 400-meter time of 49.39 seconds, fourth best in the field, moving up a spot to ninth in CMU history for that event.  He also matched his career-best by scoring 1.95 meters (6-4.75) in the high jump after recording a shot put mark of 12.19 meters (40-0).
 
Heide, came into the meet seeded fifth with his school-record and qualifying score of 7,207 points from last month's Maverick Invite and is a substantial 269 points ahead of that pace entering Friday's set of five events.
 
In the national competition, he has a 3-point lead over Angelo State's Elvis Kryukov and leads Azusa Pacific's Aaron Worrell by nine points. 
 
Heide was one of three Maverick athletes involved in Day 1 action. 
 
Mica Jenrette scored 2,946 points in the first four heptathlon events and is in 13^th place.  She was seeded 12^th coming into the meet and recorded times of 15.08 and 25.96 seconds in the 100-meter hurdles and 200-meter dash book-ending performances of 1.56 meters (5-1.25) and 11.46 meters (37-7.25) in the high jump and shot put, respectively.
 
The final three events will be held on Friday.
 
Sierra Arceneaux also competed in the 100-meter preliminaries on Thursday evening, finishing 13^th with a time of 11.77 seconds.  She was just one place and a single one-hundredth of a second out of a Second Team USTFCCCA All-America honor, which go to the ninth through 12^th place finishers in each individual event.  Arceneaux, who will contest the 200 meter prelims as the No. 5 seed on Friday, was seeded 17^th (tie) coming in in the 100.

Friday's portion of the meet will begin at 9:30 a.m. with the decathlon 110-meter hurdles.