COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo.— The Colorado Mesa University women had four of the top six finishers in the pentathlon and got five other point-scoring efforts in an impressive all-around day of action on Day 1 of the Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference Championships.
 
Those nine scoring efforts leave the Mavericks with 35 team points and in third place out of 15 teams through six of 17 total events heading into Saturday's all-finals day, which will see the Mavs represented in all 11.

The Mavs picked up 20 of their team points in the pentathlon as Katie Thomson claimed the silver medal with a season-best and NCAA Division II Championship provisional qualifying score of 3,376 points.  Sophie Lindauer also finished fourth with 3,213 and was just four points away from a bronze medal while Hope Matteson took fifth with 3,184 points.
 
Freshman Kaitlyn Pearson also scored a career-best 3,180 in her conference championship debut to take sixth and was just four points behind Matteson. She also moved up a spot to eighth in program history, just behind Matteson and Lindauer, who set a season-best scores on Friday.
 
Thompson won the event-closing 800 meters in 2:29.82, edging Lindauer, who clocked a time of 2:29.97.
 
The Mavs also picked up six team points in the weight throw as Augustine Hancock finished fourth with a throw of 17.09 meters (56 feet, 0 ¾ inches) while Christina Palmer moved up from her No. 10 pre-meet seed to grab eighth place with a mark of 15.23 meters (49-11.5), just on centimeter off her season-best.  Aaliyah Bos also took 11th in the event with a mark of 14.47 meters (47-5.5).
 
Earlier, Addy Kirkpatrick claimed sixth in the long jump with a career-best mark of 5.60 meters (18-4.25).  She snuck into the finals in ninth place but moved all the way to third with her fourth-round attempt before slipping back to her final position.  She also moved all the way to seventh in CMU history with what was the Mavs' best jump of the entire season.
 
Kirkpatrick was the 17^th of 18 jumpers on the season-long performance lists coming into the meet.
 
Lily Nieslanik also took 13^th in that event with a mark of 5.30 meters (17-4.5).
 
On the track, the Mavs picked up a fifth place finish and four team points in the 5,000 meters from Kirstin Williams, who posted a time of 18:05.15.  Teammate Kendall White was 14^th in that event, finishing in 18:46.47.
 
The Mavs also finished seventh in the distance medley relay as Megan Hodges, Lexie Williams, Jordan Staniszewski and Autumn McQuitty combined for an effort of 12:31.77, third fastest in program history.  That same quartet broke a 9-year old school record with a sea-level mark of 12:09.89 a fortnight ago in Topeka, Kansas.
 
The Mavs were also able to qualify six runners for seven total lanes in the finals of the four shortest track events, which included preliminary heats on Friday.
 
In the 60-meter hurdles, Pearson and fellow freshman Atahlia Mills both qualified for the finals.
 
Pearson finished fourth in a fast heat but picked up the second wild card spot with a time of 8.98 seconds, which moved her into the No. 6 spot of program history.  Mills qualified sixth by taking second in her heat with a season-best of 9.03 seconds.  She now sits ninth in CMU history.
 
Rimari Facey also finished 12^th in 9.24 seconds while Jessie Schaffer took 15^th in 9.46.

The Mavs also got two runners through in the 60-meter dash as Gaby Horton won her heat to qualify third overall in 7.47 seconds while Sylvia Johansen earned a spot in the finals on time with a mark of 7.71 seconds.  Horton's time was just a hundredth of a second off her school-record of 7.46, which she set in December.
 
Kammi Merritt and Serenity Burnett-Perry also raced in the 60 as Merritt finished 15^th in 7.80 seconds while Burnett-Perry finished 18^th (8.56).
 
Horton came back well in the 200 meters, posting a heat-winning time of 24.82 seconds to qualify second.  Burnett-Perry also bounced back well, claiming the seventh of eight spot in the finals after recording a mark of 25.34 seconds, matching her season-best.
 
Freshman Hannah Schissler just missed out of the finals, placing ninth in 25.59 seconds while Merritt took tenth in 25.61.  Kiona Gonzales-Gibbs also made her RMAC Championship debut, placing 16^th in 26.96 seconds.
 
Meanwhile, Jordan Burnett emerged as the top qualifier in the 400 meters, clocking a 2-lap time of 56.57 seconds.  Lexie Williams, who took 11^th in 59.67 seconds,  Facey, who finished 15^th in 1:00.97, and Madison Cook, who took 17^th in 1:01.93 were also in the field.  Cook's effort was a season-best.
 
The Colorado School of Mines, looking for a three-peat, leads the team scores with 81 ½ points while meet host UCCS is second with 65.  The Mavs are 15 ahead of CSU Pueblo.
 
The Maverick men also garnered a silver medal from Antone Higgs in the long jump and are tied for fifth through five scored events.