GRAND JUNCTION, Colo.— The Colorado Mesa University track and field teams won three of the first seven scored  events as the CMU women opened up a large Day 1 lead at the Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference Outdoor Championships on Friday here at the CMU Track & Field Complex.  The Mavericks are hosting the conference meet for the first time in program history and took advantage of home turf as Augustine Hancock, Eddie Kurjak and Josie Coffey all won gold medals while Zace Buckhold won a silver.  Heather Yackey, who also set a CMU record, and Hope Matteson also claimed bronze medals with third place finishes.
 
The Maverick women scored 47 ½ team points in the first three scored events as Coffey led four scorers in the high jump while Hancock set a facility and CMU record of 54.90 meters (180 feet, 1 ¼ inches) in the hammer throw.  She also finished fifth in the discus throw as the Mavericks went 3-4-5-8 in that event, helping the CMU women take a 30-point lead over 4-time defending conference champions UCCS and the rest of the field early in the meet.
 
Meanwhile, the Maverick men went 1-2 in the high jump thanks to Kurjak and Buckhold and also picked up seventh place finishes from Nathan Jones in both the hammer and discus throw to tally 22 points, good for a second place tie in the early standings after four men's events.  The Mav men are tied with UCCS with 22 points,  behind the Colorado School of Mines, who scored 48 total points.  The Orediggers racked up 38 of those by taking each of the top seven spots in the 10,000 meters, which capped the day after a mid-race lightning delay thwarted the women's event, forcing a restart of that event on Saturday morning at 8 a.m. 
 
Preliminary round heats were also held in the 100, 400, 400 hurdles and 1,500 meters as the Mavericks advanced nine total runners to those events.
 
The first five events of the men's decathlon were also held on Friday as freshmen Levi Hoenninger and Evan Atkin stand in first and third place, respectively.
 
Hancock broke her own 19-day old facility and Maverick record to win the hammer throw and her first career RMAC title with an improved NCAA provisional qualifying throw of 54.90 meters (180-1).
 
She then came back with a discus throw of 44.15 meters (144-10) to finish fifth and just behind Yackey and Christina Palmer.  Yackey claimed the bronze medal with an NCAA provisional qualifying throw of 46.77 meters (153-5) as the top three finishers were separated by just five centimeters or two inches.
 
In the process, Yackey broke the Maverick record, which had been held by Palmer who was sandwiched in between Yackey and Hancock, finishing fourth at 46.21 meters (151-7), a mark that was 11 centimeters or four inches ahead of her former school-record entering the day.
 
Freshman Kaiya Graves also reached the finals and placed eighth with a mark of 41.88 meters (137-5).
 
Meanwhile, the Mavericks also fared well in the high jump, scoring 21 ½ team points.
 
Coffey won her fifth career title, successfully backing up her 2023 outdoor and 2024 indoor titles by clearing 1.73 meters (5-8) while Matteson was able to get over 1.62 meters (5-3.75) on her first attempt to take the bronze.  Freshman Preslee Moser also cleared that same height on her second attempt to tie for fifth while moving up to the No. 8 spot in program history.  Kaelea Gibson also finished seventh with a clearance of 1.57 meters (5-1.75).
 
The men's high jump quickly turned into an all-Maverick battle as Kurjak, who like Coffey had won the RMAC indoor title in February, edged Buckhold on tie-breaking procedures.  Both men cleared 2.04 meters (6-8.25) before skipping ahead to 2.13 meters with the 1-2 finish already secured, a height that proved too difficult for both in the off-and-on rainy conditions that hampered most of the day.
 
Dawson Heide also competed in the event, taking ninth at 1.89 meters (6-2.25).
 
Jones got the Maverick scoring underway as he registered a hammer throw mark of 51.33 meters (168-5) before throwing the discus 42.90 meters (140-9).  Jameson Moore also finished tenth in the discus at 41.94 meters (137-7) while competing in the decathlon.
 
Hoenninger scored 3,665 points in the first five decathlon events and took a slight 36-point lead over UCCS's Thorben Hast.  Atkin is third with 3,450 points while Moore is sixth with 2,937.
 
Hoenninger was the top man in the field in three different disciplines on Friday, running the 100 meters in 10.86 seconds before jumping 6.86 meters (22-6.25) in the long jump.  He then closed out the day after the evening lightning delay with a stellar 400-meter time of 48.99 seconds, moving all the way up to sixth in CMU history for that discipline.
 
The Mavericks also sprinted well qualifying two women and four men for the 100-meter finals.  Gaby Horton won her heat of the women's in a wind-aided 11.74 seconds to qualify second overall for Sunday's final while Jordan Burnett was the No. 7 overall qualifier with a time of 11.78.
 
Teo Casados (10.49w)and Elijah Williams (10.61) both won their heats in the men's 100 and will be the second and third qualifiers.  They will be joined by Kade Christensen (10.60) and Marik Cummings (10.64) in the finals.
 
Meanwhile, Justin Blanton broke his own school-record in the 400, running to an NCAA provisional qualifying time of 47.41 seconds as the top qualifier.  Heide also reached the final, qualifying eighth overall in a career-best time of 49.19 seconds to move up two spots to seventh in program history.
 
Kelsey Montague also qualified first in the 400-meter hurdles, winning his heat in 52.83 seconds.