2024 RMAC Outdoor Track & Field Championships
Friday-Sunday - hosted by Colorado Mesa [RMAC Network PPV] [Live Results] [Championship Central] 

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OREDIGGERS START POSTSEASON AT RMAC OUTDOORS
The 2024 RMAC Outdoor Track & Field Championships start Friday as the three-day meet heads to Grand Junction and Colorado Mesa to crown individual and team champions. Mines, who won both RMAC indoor titles in 2024, will try to build on that performance on a track they have become very familiar with, having competed at CMU twice already this season. 

FAN INFORMATION
Tickets for the meet are required and can be purchased online at rmacsports.org. The meet will be streamed on the RMAC Network pay-per-view, with day passes for $9.95 and full weekend access available for $25. Live results are available via Rapid Results Timing.

MINES AIMS FOR HISTORY
History will be on the line for both the Mines men and women this weekend, for different reasons. The men are aiming for their second-ever RMAC "triple crown" - the cross country, indoor, and outdoor track & field titles in the same school year - as they last accomplished that feat in 2017-18. Mines has won three RMAC men;s outdoor titles, in 1963, 2018, and 2019. The women, who have finished no worse than third every year since 2018, are trying to win their first-ever outdoor crown having captured the last two indoor titles.

WHAT TO WATCH - FRIDAY
Friday will largely be field finals as the hammer throw, high jump, and discus events take place, while the track program will be mostly prelims along with the 10,000m finals to end the day. The hammer throw starts competition with Davin Kiesby, Hayden Swim, and Brody Welch entered for the men and Kitt Rupar for the women; the discus will have Swim plus Cade Whish and Franklin Rambo for the men while Rupar goes in as the women's #2 seed. Grant Redmond, the 2022 RMAC champion in the high jump, competes at his final conference meet, while the women's event has Claire Kintzley and two-time RMAC medalist Lexye Wood.

Mines has loaded up its 10K entries with its top runners, including 2021 champion Zoe Baker along with Jenna Ramsey-Rutledge, Grace Strongman, Molly Maksin, Holly Moser, and Ashleigh Loe in the women's race. The men hold the top five and seven of the top eight seeds led by Logan Bocovich, along with Paul Knight, Duncan Fuehne, JP Rutledge, defending champion Andrew Kaye, John O'Malley, and Dawson Gunn. Friday track prelims include the 1,500m (Brock Drengenberg, Daniel Appleford, Matt Mettler, Alberto Campa, and Riley McGrath), the 400m dash (Aryelle Wright, Grace Galvin, and Randi Higashi), and the 400m hurdles (Elijah Quinby, Rhett Cullers, defending champion Everett Delate, Aani Hardesty, and Allison Comer). 

WHAT TO WATCH - SATURDAY
Saturday will start with the heptathlon, where the Orediggers' Avery Wright and Lisa Sutherland start the first of two days of competition with the 100m hurdles, high jump, shot put, and 200m dash. In the field, the javelin has Franklin and Kolby Denke, a pair of freshmen, among the top seeds, while three-time RMAC medalist Lexye Wood goes for another title in the long jump. The Orediggers' title hopes could hinge on how many points they can gather in the pole vault, an event they have dominated in recent years; the women's competition has Mines owning the top four seeds led by conference recordholder Hannah Miller along with Avery Herbold, Ava Kowalski, Dale Thompson, and Madeline Obuchowski; both Miller and Herbold are past RMAC champions. It's a similar situation for the men men, who hold the top five seeds led by conference recordholder Hunter Potrykus, joined by Aidan Bennett (co-champ indoors with Potrykus), Noah Kelly, Kai Miller, Shane Conley, and Jackson Wray.

Saturday has just one event on the track as a final, the steeplechase, where the women are led by Margaux Basart and the men by 2023 silver medalist Alex Shaw. Mines hopes to advance multiple competitors through to hurdle finals as the women's field includes both Wright and Sutherland in open competition along with Andrea Walser and Hardesty, and the men's field includes defending champ Delate plus Cullers and Coulton Chan. The 800m prelims include indoor titleist Aryelle Wright along with Imani Fernandez-Gorbea and Avary Catchings for the women, and men's indoor champ Tim Thompson for the men.

WHAT TO WATCH - SUNDAY
Sunday's track program is all finals with preliminary advancers racing for points and hardware; the only distance not covered by a prelim is the 5,000m, where Mines again enters very strong fields with a combination of 10K, steeplechase, and 1,500m runners taking part. Field finals include the shot put, with Whish, Welch, Rambo, Swim, and Rupar taking part, and the triple jump with Nicholas Nijkamp and Kintlzey competing for Mines, along with the conclusion of the heptathlon. 

MILLER, POTRYKUS EARN RMAC WEEKLY AWARDS
Hannah Miller and Hunter Potrykus' record-setting pole vault performances at the Kit Mayer Classic earned each of them the RMAC Field Athlete of the Week awards on Wednesday. Both set RMAC all-venues records in the event on Friday, as Miller earned her 11th career RMAC weekly award and fourth of 2024 and Potrykus wins his second of the outdoor season and the seventh in his career. Miller cleared 4.30m, resetting her own RMAC all-venues best of 4.27m from this year's RMAC Indoor Championships. It ranks as the #3 performance of the season in NCAA Division II, and Miller moved up to #10 all-time in NCAA Division II history. Potrykus reset his Mines record yet again, clearing 5.41m to set the RMAC outdoor record and tie the all-venues mark. It is the #2 performance of the outdoor season in NCAA Division II, and he is now tied for 18th all-time in divisional history.

SETTING RECORDS
The outdoor season, much like the indoor campaign, has seen Mines athletes rewrite the program record book. Eight program records have been broken or reset: Hannah Miller (4.30m) and Hunter Potrykus (5.41m) in the pole vault last week at the Kit Mayer Classic (both RMAC records and both for the second time this season), Everett Delate in the 110m hurdles (13.95) and Lexye Wood in the long jump (6.11m) at the Maverick Invite #2, and Riley McGrath in the 1,500m (4:26.31) and Zoe Baker in the 5,000m (15:58.60) at the Bryan Clay Invite. Those add to four other records broken earlier in the season including both pole vault marks as Aryelle Wright lowered her 800m time to 2:07.08 in Miami, and Allison Comer has twice reset the women's 400m hurdles record, including last time out at Colorado Mesa with a 1:01.75 time.

IN THE POLLS
The USTFCCCA national ratings index release this week puts the Mines women at #7 and the men at #11 in NCAA Division II. That ties the women's best-ever outdoor rating. The RMAC announced its coaches' polls for the outdoor season in mid-March, and the Mines women were selected first and the men second with each coming off of indoor team championships. 

INDOOR CHAMPIONSHIPS LOOKBACK
Mines captured both of the 2024 RMAC Indoor team titles for the first time in program history as both the men and women held off UCCS on Feb. 24 in Spearfish, S.D. Athlete of the Meet Loic Scomparin led Mines with the 5K gold and 3K and mile silver medals among eight total champions for the Orediggers, which included Hannah Miller and Hunter Potrykus and Aidan Bennett in the pole vault, Zoe Baker in the 5K, Everett Delate in the 60m hurdles, Aryelle Wright and Tim Thompson in the 800m, and the women's 4x400. 

COMING UP
Pending any last chance additions to the schedule, Mines' next scheduled action will be at the NCAA Championships, set for May 23-25 at Emporia State in Kansas.