GUNNISON, Colo.— Freshman Asa Keim claimed the bronze medal with a career-best pole vault mark of 4.78 meters and stands in seventh place after the first day of the heptathlon while Teo Casados matched his own school-record in the 60 meters, the biggest highlights of a strong day of performances for the Colorado Mesa University Maverick men's track & field squad on the first day of the 2026 Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference Indoor Championships.
 
Keim, who also earned qualification in to the NCAA Division II Pre-Championship Qualification meet for the sport of diving last week, had a busy Friday here in the Western Colorado University's Mountaineer Field House claiming six team points in the pole vault while setting three new season-bests in his four heptathlon events while racking up 2,558 points.
 
The Mavericks also picked up six team points in the long jump as well as four thanks to a NCAA Division II Championship provisional qualifying time in the distance medley relay and stand in sixth place of the team standings through five scored events with 16 team points.
 
Casados led five Maverick qualifiers in to Saturday's 60-meter final as he matched his Maverick record time of 6.70 seconds that he had set on the same track in December. 
 
Meanwhile, Solomon Griffen, Marik Cummings, Joseph Randolph and Amaris Mora all set times of 6.83 seconds to join Casados in the final as they were all separated by just thousandths of a second for lane assignment purposes.
 
Griffen and Mora both set season-best times while Griffen, a freshman, moved in to the No. 9 spot of program history with his effort.
 
Griffen also shined in the 60-meter hurdles, recording an NCAA provisional qualifying time of 7.93 seconds to emerge as the top qualifier while moving in to second place on the Mavs' all-time list for the discipline, trailing only former multi-event all-American Dawson Heide by just two one hundredths.
 
Top-seeded Joseph Randolph also easily booked a spot in the 200-meter final, qualifying second overall in 21.73 seconds.
 
The distance medley relay quartet of Colton White, Blake Anderson, Chase Brown and Clayton Wilson then posted a NCAA provisional qualifying time of 10:23.41 to take fifth place.  The clocking is the third fastest in program history.
 
In the field, Hayden Moreno set a season-best of 6.99 meters (22-11.25) to take fourth place in the long jump while freshman Weston Domich scratched out an additional team point with an eighth place jump of 6.61 meters (21-8.25).

Fellow freshman Devin Shea also placed 11^th with a leap of 6.52 meters (21-4.75).
 
Meanwhile, Austin Schultz set a career-best shot put mark of 15.79 meters (51-9.75) to move up a spot to second in program history while finishing tenth.  Kaiden Major also finished 15^th with an effort of 14.73 meters (48-4).
 
Keim, the Mavs' lone entrant in both the heptathlon and pole vault, opened his hectic day with a season-best time of 7.55 seconds in the 60-meter portion of the heptathlon and then set jumping marks of 5.77 meters (18-11.25) and 1.82 meters (5-11.50) in the long and high jumps around between his pole vaulting efforts, which saw him set a 12-centimeter career-best. 
 
In between, he also fared best in the 18-man heptathlon field in the shot put with a throw of 13.21 meters (43-4.25), nearly two feet higher than his previous season-best of 12.69 meters (41-7.75).  His high jump effort was also a 3-centimeter improvement over his former season-best.
 
The Grain Valley, Missouri native is 46 points ahead of his pace from his only other collegiate heptathlon from earlier this season.  He was the Mavs' lone entrant in both the heptathlon and pole vault.
 
Elsewhere, Roman Sackman took 15^th in the 60 meters with a time of 7.00 seconds while Aidan Brownell turned in a season-best of 8.33 seconds to take 11^th in the 60 hurdles.  Trevor Kendall finished 17^th in 8.57 seconds.
 
Mora and Alonzo Leiba then finished 13^th and 14^th in the 200 meters with times of 22.38 and 22.41 seconds, respectively.
 
The Mavs also had three entrants in the 400-meter preliminaries.  Jordan Fraser finished 11^th in 50.00 seconds while Antonio Wadsworth was 15^th in 50.71.  Anderson finished 16^th in 50.75.
 
The meet will continue on Saturday, with Keim resuming the heptathlon at 10 a.m. to get the all-finals day underway.