Results

PUEBLO, Colo. - Colorado School of Mines crowned three champions on the second day of the 2021 RMAC Outdoor Track & Field Championships at CSU Pueblo.

Hayden Sather won the decathlon in a new RMAC Championships record, Hannah Miller captured the women's pole vault in a 1-2 finish with Avery Herbold, and Arvid Veidmark IV took discus gold as Mines enjoyed a fantastic day in the field. 

Jake Mitchem won silver in the steeplechase with an NCAA automatic qualifying time, while Aryelle Wright broke her 800m program record once again to qualify first for Sunday's final. 

The Mines women remained in first place with 65 points to lead UCCS by 16, while the men are in second with 52 points, four back of Western Colorado.

DECATHLON
Sitting in second entering the day, Hayden Sather quickly made up ground with big points in the 110m hurdles (15.65 seconds), discus (38.27m), and pole vault (4.13m) to take the lead in the decathlon. He wrapped up his gold medal with a 53.14m throw in the javelin and a 4:37.23 time in the 1500m run to end the day, ending with a 7,146-point total to win by more than 550 points over the field. His total set a new RMAC Championships record, besting the 6,939-point mark that had stood since 2007. More importantly, that puts Sather firmly in the national picture with D-II's #5 point total of the season, bumping him up from #11 heading into the weekend; he joins teammate Connor McLean as the only other Oredigger to eclipse 7,000 points in the grueling two-day multi-event with the #2 all-time performance at Mines. 

WOMEN'S POLE VAULT
Mines dominated the women's pole vault taking 25 of a possible 36 team points led by Hannah Miller and Avery Herbold's 1-2 finish. Both Orediggers cleared 3.84m (12-7.25) and then passed at the 3.94m bar, but neither cleared 4.04m. Miller was judged the winner having made 3.84m on her first attempt. Meanwhile, Gabbi Varela finished fifth getting over 3.54m (11-7.25), and Ava Kowalski and Lauren Kelly tied for seventh at 3.44m (11-3.5) to round out Mines' deep scoring.

DISCUS
Arvid Veidmark IV continued his outstanding outdoor season with the discus gold medal, unleashing a 48.71m (159-10) toss on his second attempt to win by nearly two feet over the field. 

The women scored 11 team points in the event thanks to Kathleen Tomon's bronze-medal performance of 43.17m (141-8), and Krista Carlo was only an inch shorter in fourth place at 42.16m (141-7). Both marks were PRs as Tomon pushed her best by a foot and an inch and Carlo added more than two feet to her previous best. 

3,000m STEEPLECHASE
Jake Mitchem started the morning on the track with a silver medal in the steeplechase, running an NCAA automatic time of 9:05.57, three seconds quicker than his time at last week's Pre-Conference Invite. Converted for altitude, that will put him under the NCAA automatic threshold of 8:51.96 and ensure his spot at the NCAA Division II Championships. Nathan Davis snagged the final team point with a 9:34.50 clocking in eighth, while Joseph Wolfe was 12th in 9:51.78.

TRACK PRELIMS
It was a relatively quiet day on the track with only six preliminary races, and three Orediggers made it into Sunday finals. 

For the women, Aryelle Wright will go into the 800m final as the top overall seed after running 2:10.73, dropping nearly a half-second off her previous best of 2:11.20 set on the same track earlier this spring. The time will move Wright even further into the top 10 nationally. Sophia Collins finished 15th in the 100m hurdles in 16.09, and Natalie Pollock was 22nd in the 200m dash in 27.17. 

On the men's side, Ben Abueg made it through in the 800m with a huge PR of 1:51.75, which should put him in the national top 20 as an NCAA provisional time. In the 110m hurdles, Everett Delate qualified third in 14.65 seconds. 

NEXT UP
Sunday will be jam-packed with track finals beginning at 11 a.m., and field finals in the shot put, high jump, javelin, men's triple jump, and men's pole vault beginning at 9:30 a.m.