SPEARFISH, S.D.— After watching then teammate and now graduate assistant coach Mica Jenrette win her third straight Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference pentathlon title last year, Colorado Mesa University sophomore Katie Thomson took her spot as the new queen of the multis on Friday as she won the 2024 conference title, highlighting an impressive day of performances for the Maverick women's indoor track & field team here at Black Hills State University's Donald E. Young Center.
 
The Mavericks scored 19 of their 34 Day 1 team points in the pentathlon on Friday as Jordan Brockman won the bronze medal while CMU had four of the top eight finishers in the 5-discipline competition.
 
The Mavs also scored in the other three finals that they were represented in as Brockman took fourth in the long jump while Venesa Handzhiyska finished sixth.  The Mavs also received a fifth-place finish from Augustine Hancock in the weight throw and a sixth place run from Kirstin Williams in the 5,000 meters enabling the Mavs to stand in third place of the team standings through six scored events.
 
The Mavs are just one point behind UCCS while defending champion Colorado School of Mines took the top four spots in the 5,000 meters while scoring 24 other points in the pole vault, propelling the Orediggers to an impressive first day total of 80 points.
 
Meanwhile, CMU also earned four total lanes in the sprinting event finals, which began with preliminary round heats on Friday.
 
Thomson, a native of Cheyenne, Wyoming, set a new personal-best of 11.96 meters (39 feet, 3 inches) in the shot put during her overall pentathlon performance of 3,533 points.  She won by 68 second points over Colorado School of Mines sophomore Avery Wright, closing out the overall event with a win in the 800 meters.  Thomson crossed in 2:24.81, 6.2 seconds ahead of Wright, which allowed her to out-point Wright by 79 points in that discipline.
 
Thomson, who finished sixth in last year's RMAC Championship pentathlon, also fared best of the 18 women in the field during the shot put and moved into the Mavericks' all-time top 10 for that discipline.  She now ranks eighth in program history with that effort, which was more than two feet superior to her former personal record of 11.32 meters (37-1.75).
 
Brockman was also consistent to take third with her overall score of 3,427 points, just 17 off her career-best.  She won the 60-meter hurdles in 9.10 seconds.
 
Hope Matteson and Sophie Lindauer also scored team points, finishing seventh and eighth, respectively.  Matteson tallied 3,222 points and closed out her day with a career-best and second place time of 2:28.23 in the 800 meters.  Lindauer scored 2,999 points and had a career-best time of 9.63 seconds in the hurdles.
 
Elsewhere, Brockman jumped 5.42 meters (17-9.25) in the long jump while Handzhiyska tallied a mark of 5.33 meters (17-5.75) in her RMAC Championship debut.  Fellow freshman Kylee Kielian also made the finals before settling for ninth place on a tie-breaker with an effort of 5.24 meters (17-2.25).  Lily Nieslanik took tenth in the event at 5.17 meters (16-11.5) while Addy Kirkpatrick fouled on all three of her attempts.
 
In the throwing cage, Hancock recorded her weight throw of 15.85 meters (52-0) to garner her first career RMAC Championship team points.  Teammate Christina Palmer was 14^th at 14.90 meters (48-10.5).
 
On the track, Williams finished in 17:31.04 to move up a spot to second in program history and claim sixth place as the Mavs' lone distance runner of the night.  Mines' Zoe Baker set a championship record of 16:44.69 to lead Mines to the top four places and 29 team points in that event alone. 
 
The Orediggers' Hannah Miller also set a new championship and facility record of 4.27 meters (14-0) in the pole vault.
 
The Mavs also fared well in the sprints as Gaby Horton shaved 15 hundredths of a second off her former career-best, running to a 60-meter preliminary round time of 7.59 seconds.  She is now tied for third in program history with her NCAA Division II Championship provisional qualifying time.
 
Teammates Sylvia Johansen (7.78) and Serenity Burnett-Perry (7.87) also competed in the event, taking tenth and 14^th, respectively.
 
Meanwhile, Jordan Burnett easily qualified out of the 400-meter prelims, winning her heat in 57.35 seconds before coming back to win her 200-meter heat in 25.03 seconds.  Horton also turned in the same time to win her heat and reach Saturday's finals.  Burnett-Perry took 11^th in the 200 and 25.88 seconds while Brockman finished 16^th in the 60-meter hurdle preliminaries with a time of 9.35 seconds during her quite busy day.
 
The Maverick men also had an individual champion in long jump winner Justin Thompson.