Results

PITTSBURG, Kan. - Colorado School of Mines found five podium finishes on the opening day of the 2024 NCAA Division II Indoor Track & Field Championships at Pitt State.

Hannah Miller won the pole vault silver medal, Loic Scomparin, Duncan Fuehne, and Molly Maksin all got on the 5,000m podium, and the women's distance medley relay placed seventh to highlight the first day for the Orediggers in event finals. 

Out of track prelims, Everett Delate (60m hurdles), Alberto Campa (mile), and Aryelle Wright (800m) made it through to Saturday finals.

In the early team standings, the Oredigger women are seventh with 13 points, and the men are ninth with seven points.

With five competitors attempting 4.22m and none making it over in the pole vault, Miller was down to her final attempt when she cleared the bar to ensure a top-two finish. National recordholder Brynn King of Roberts Wesleyan entered the competition and cleared her first attempt at 4.32m, five centimeters above Miller's PR, to win the national title as Miller bowed out. For Miller, it represents a third consecutive top-two nationals finish after winning the 2023 indoor gold and outdoor silver medals; she is now an eight-time all-American in the pole vault. Earlier in the competition, Avery Herbold cleared her first two bars of 3.77m and 3.92m to ultimately finish a career-best 10th and earn her second consecutive Second-Team All-America designation.

All three of Mines' men's 5K entrants earned all-America status as Scomparin and Fuehne placed fourth and seventh, respectively, and Paul Knight ran 11th. Scomparin's kick moved him up two spots in the final lap to finish in 13:56.57, while Fuehne also moved up a place in the last 300 meters to close in 13:59.70; both earn First-Team All-America honors, and it marks Scomparin's 10th career all-America honor, making him the ninth Oredigger to join that exclusive club. Knight came back from 15th place with two laps to go to finish 11th in 14:10.18 for Second-Team All-America status. All three men will also contest the 3,000m Saturday night.

The quartet of Oredigger women in the 5K ran as a pack early on before Baker made a move to the front group at the halfway point, taking Maksin with her; Maksin ultimately closed in sixth (16:18.62) as Baker fell back to place 13th (16:32.75), with Jenna Ramsey-Rutledge surging in the final laps to ninth (16:26.75) and Holly Moser taking 11th (16:32.12) with a three-spot final-lap improvement as both earned Second-Team All-America. Both Maksin and Ramsey-Rutledge's times marked personal bests as the #2 and #3 all-time Mines performances.

The women's DMR ended up on the podium for a second consecutive year as the combo of Imani Fernandez-Gorbea, Grace Galvin, Aryelle Wright, and Riley McGrath ran just off their program record in a time of 11:29.00 to finish seventh.

Delate ran a 7.89 preliminary in a fast first heat of the 60m hurdles, then had to wait to see if he qualified for finals, making it through by a hundredth of a second as the eighth and final qualifier. He will be assured of a podium finish in his first NCAA finals appearance at 4 p.m. CT Saturday. Alberto Campa moved into Saturday's mile final with a 4:12.52 time, qualifying ninth out of the faster of the two heats. Brock Drengenberg ran 4:13.97 out of a slower first heat to finish 14th overall. Riley McGrath also finished 14th in the women's mile with a prelim time of 4:49.18. Campa moves on to Saturday's final at 4:40 p.m. CT. Wright ran a season-best 2:09.22 in a fast 800m heat, qualifying as the top at-large finalist with the sixth-best time overall. Her final will be at 5:35 p.m. CT on Saturday.

Lexye Wood was Mines' only other field entrant on Friday, recording 5.50m on her first long jump attempt to place 15th. 

The second and final day of the meet begins Saturday morning at 10 a.m. CT with the women's pentathlon.