Results

ALAMOSA, Colo. - Colorado School of Mines captured its first-ever women's RMAC Indoor Track & Field Championship, outdueling defending champion UCCS on a dramatic final day of the meet at Adams State.

The Orediggers scored 139.5 team points and took advantage of virtually every opportunity, nudging past the Mountain Lions in mid-afternoon and then holding them off by a 10.5-point margin to capture their first conference championship led by the 4x400 relay's win, Zoe Baker's 3K silver, and Amena Nelson's 400m bronze. The Oredigger men, led by 60m hurdles champion Everett Delate and 400m winner Jonah Fallon, placed fifth with 69.33 points.

The title is Mines' first in either women's cross country, indoor track & field, or outdoor track & field. The men had previously won indoor titles in 1963, 2016, and 2018. 

WOMEN'S MEET
Leading overnight after taking big points in the pole vault, long jump, and 5,000m on Friday, the Oredigger women quickly found themselves in a dogfight with UCCS on Saturday.

Mines started the day with Avery Wright running a personal-best 8.94 - just a hundredth off the program record - to place fifth in the 60m hurdles, and Clare Peters and Alex Raichart both scored in the mile as Peters ran a fifth-place 5:07.39 and Raichart was eighth in 5:14.06. Multiple scorers in those events plus the 60m dash by UCCS, however, found Mines trailing in the team standings after three events on the track. 

Things quickly turned around in the 400m as Mines scored three finalists - Amena Nelson (3rd, 58.05), Grace Galvin (4th, 58.77), and Randi Higashi (5th, 58.81) - with UCCS suffering a disqualification in the event. That gave the Orediggers the lead back headed into the 800m, where Aryelle Wright (4th, 2:12.56) outran UCCS' Kate Hedlund (5th, 2:13.09).

After UCCS added points in the 200m, Mines put the hammer down on the track with the closing combo of the 3,000m and 4x400 relay, producing a huge 26 points from the two. Four Orediggers scored in the 3K led by Baker's silver medal in 10:07.29, with Molly Maksin (10:23.15) and Jenna Ramsey (10:27.33) in fifth and sixth and Brin Strouse securing a point in eighth at 10:32.52. There was zero doubt in the final event, the 4x400 relay, as the squad of Nelson, Galvin, Higashi, and Wright just had to avoid a baton drop and stay ahead of UCCS, which they did in 3:52.47 to win gold by more than five seconds; Wright anchored in a blistering 57.01. 

Sealing the team title was a gigantic personal best in the shot put by Kitt Rupar, who entered the event seeded 16th with a season best of 12.10m, but threw 12.88m on her third attempt to take sixth place and score three team points. Claire Kintzley also added valuable points with her collegiate-best 11.65m triple jump mark to finish fourth, and Lexye Wood cleared 1.61m for seventh in the high jump. 

MEN'S MEET
While the team drama was on the women's side, the Oredigger men were collecting plenty of individual hardware on Saturday to complete their fifth-place finish. Delate earned the first gold medal of the day with his 7.98 time in the 60m hurdles to win by two-hundreths, and Fallon made his RMACs debut a memorable one as he blazed to a 48.97 victory to stand atop the podium in the 400m. 

Tim Thompson added an 800m bronze in 1:53.67 a spot ahead of Andrew Gebhardt in 1:54.60, and Ethan Grolnic (14th, 4:28.90) and Alberto Campa (15th, 4:30.73) finished together in the mile. Delate, Gebhardt, Thompson, and Fallon teamed up for fourth in the 4x400 with a time of 3:21.27.

In the field, Grant Redmond shared silver in the high jump as one of three competitors to clear 2.02m without a previous miss, and Fischer James Espiritu Argosino had a season-best 14.09m triple jump performance to take eighth. The shot put saw two Orediggers hit personal bests as Brody Welch was sixth at 15.97m and Hayden Swim eighth at 15.52m, with Arvid Veidmark IV ninth at 15.37m. 

NEXT UP
The NCAA Division II Championships are set for March 10-11 in Virginia Beach. The field for nationals will be announced Tuesday, Feb. 28.