Results

CHADRON, Neb. - Co-Athlete of the Meet Everett Delate was a double champion to lead five gold medals for Colorado School of Mines on the final day of the 2023 RMAC Outdoor Track & Field Championships.

Delate captured both the 110m hurdles and 400m hurdles, Amena Nelson won the 400m and helped the women's 4x400 to gold, and Avery Herbold won the pole vault to lead a number of standout individual performances for the Orediggers. The Mines women finished third overall at 109.5 points with the men fourth at 111; UCCS won both team titles.

Delate was impressive as he won both hurdle events in the space of an hour, pushing ahead in the final half of the 110m race to win in 14.12 before setting a new personal best 52.83 to take the 400 by nearly a second. His 20 team points earned him a share of the Athlete of the Meet award with three other competitors as the top individual point-scorers. 

Nelson stormed to a personal-best 55.59 win in the 400m, trailing with 50 meters to go before overtaking Colorado Mesa's Jordan Burnett at the line to win by fourth-hundreths of a second. Grace Galvin was eighth in the final in 57.51. Nelson and Galvin then closed the meet out as half of the women's 4x400, along with Aryelle Wright and Mackenzie Duck, that won by more than four seconds in 3:44.62, snapping their own meet record set last year. 

The women's pole vault provided early drama as it went to a three-way jump-off for the title between Miller, Herbold, and Western Colorado's Lauren Smith. In windy conditions, none of the three made the 3.84m bar and none had prior misses, so each had an additional attempt to clear it for the win; both Smith and Miller missed, but Herbold had the bar stay up to win her second consecutive outdoor gold. Miller shared the silver at 3.71m, with Ava Kowalski fifth at 3.56m and Lauren Kelly seventh at 3.41m to compile 23 total team points for the Orediggers.

The women's 800m final was run at a historic pace as Wright claimed bronze and Duck was fourth, with the top four finishers all under the previous RMAC meet record time. Wright ran 2:08.37 and Duck crossed in a new personal-best 2:09.05, a time which likely cemented her spot at nationals as she moves into the top 10 with Wright. Luke Julian took the bronze medal in the 1500m final in 3:52.71 with Matt Mettler placing ninth in 3:59.81, while Lexi Herr was 12th in the women's final in 4:37.95. Coulton Chan added a sixth-place 110m hurdles finish in 15.11, and Tim Thompson was seventh in the men's 800m final in 1:57.81. Allison Comer added women's team points with her fifth-place 400m hurdles final placing, running a personal-best 1:03.37.

The women's 5000m was another race run with historic times as Zoe Baker took a silver medal with the top three times smashing the meet record that had stood since 1999. Baker and Western Colorado's Katie Doucette battled the entire back half of the race and were separated by less than a second at the line with Baker finishing in 16:29.31; she led big Mines points in the race as Holly Moser took fourth (17:10.10), Molly Maksin sixth (17:18.42), and Grace Strongman seventh (17:24.00), with Brin Strouse 12th (17:53.71).

Grant Redmond led the men's field efforts with his high jump silver medal, clearing 2.07m in his second event of the day. The men's javelin started the day with Garrett Lanker 12th at 51.39m and Redmond 17th at 47.64m.

In the triple jump, Fischer James Espiritu Argosino placed fifth in the men's event at 13.91m and Claire Kintzley was seventh in the women's event at 11.05m. Brody Welch placed sixth in the men's shot put, tying his collegiate best of 15.93m, with Arvid Veidmark IV 10th at 14.32m and Hayden Swim 11th at 14.25m. Kitt Rupar was 16th in the women's shot put with a best of 11.44m.