GRAND JUNCTION, Colo.— The Colorado Mesa University men's track and field team swept the podium spots in the triple jump and won three other Sunday events as well en-route to a school-record setting second place finish at the Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference Championships, which the Mavs hosted for the first time over the past three days at the CMU Track & Field Complex.
The Mavericks also set four new school records and turned in nine medal winning performances throughout the day, finishing the meet with 166 ½ team points, just 11 ½ shy of UCCS, which won a fourth straight title with 178. The Mavs' point total was 41 higher than last year's former school-record and enabled the Mavs to take second in consecutive seasons.
The Mavs racked up 97 of those points in Sunday's events, 28 of which came in the triple jump as
Miller Jones set a school and facility record mark of 15.84 meters (51 feet, 11 ¾ inches) to lead the Maverick' podium sweep and 1-2-3-5 finish. That mark also leads the season-long NCAA Division II performance list and surpassed the U.S. Olympic Trials minimum qualifying standard of 15.75 meters.
Meanwhile,
Zace Buckhold took second in the event with a career-best performance of 15.17 meters (49-9.25) to earn his third silver medal of the meet in as many days while being named as the meet MVP after earning 24 team points.
Eddie Kurjak, who beat Buckhold on tie-breaking procedures in the high jump on Friday was third at 14.54 meters (47-8.5), also a career-best, while
Salem Brunk finished fifth at 14.07 meters (46-2).
The Mavs also fared well on the track as
Justin Blanton and
Kelsey Montague broke their own school-records while winning the 400-meter dash and 400 hurdles, respectively.
Teo Casados also won the 200 meters and claimed four medals throughout the day.
Blanton blazed to a time of 47.08 seconds to set the new track record while breaking his preliminary round school-record time of 47.41 seconds to move on to the NCAA Championship selection bubble.
Meanwhile, Montague took more than three tenths of a second off his own school and track record in the hurdles, completing his lap around the track in 51.91 seconds to move up to the No. 11 spot on the national performance list, likely securing a trip to next month's national championships.
In the 200, Casados ran to a career-best time of 21.04 seconds while Blanton took fourth in 21.53 as they stand second and third in program history behind
Elijah Williams, who bravely hobbled through the finish line in both the 100 and 200 meters after injuring himself on the anchor leg of CMU's silver medal winning 4x100-meter relay team that finished in 40.37 seconds, third fastest in school history.
Williams was the fastest 200-meter qualifier and was seeded second in the 100-meter final after strong preliminary round performances over the past two days.
The Mavs still managed to score 14 team points in the 100 as Casados won the bronze medal in 10.66 seconds while
Marik Cummings finished fifth at 10.81 seconds.
Kade Christensen was also in the final and took sixth in 10.87.
The Mavs also picked up a seventh place finish from freshman
Kyle Towne in the 800 meters and an eighth place finish from
Dawson Heide in the 400 before Montague,
Jeremiah Reed, Blanton and Casados ran to a school-record smashing time of 3:14.44 to complete the meet in the 4x400-meter relay. That time was 1.25 seconds quicker than the Mavs' 2-year old school record and was good for second place behind UCCS's track-record setting time of 3:12.29. It also enabled the Mavs to hold on to second place overall after the Colorado School of Mines won an earlier section in 3:15.99 to place third overall. That result and the two team point net gain proved to be the final margin in the team standings as Mines finished third with 164 ½ team points after scoring 22 team points in the preceding 5,000 meters.
The Maverick women also set a new program-record team score of 123 points and finished second for the first time in program history after taking third in 2022 and fourth a year ago.
