Final Results

EMPORIA, Kan. - Grace Strongman's 5,000m national championship led Colorado School of Mines' women to their first-ever podium finish as the Orediggers tied for third to conclude the 2026 NCAA Division II Outdoor Track & Field Championships.

Capping a historic year that saw the women's cross country team win its first-ever RMAC title and finish a best-ever second nationally, Mines scored team points behind a Strongman and Emily LaMena 1-2 finish in the 5K on Saturday. The Oredigger men, highlighted by Dawson Gunn's 5K silver medal, finished 11th with 25 team points. 

The previous best outdoor finish by the Oredigger women was a tie for 11th in 2023. Despite having only six qualifiers, the Mines women scored exactly what they were projected to based on seeding - 40 points - as Strongman and LeMena accounted for 18 points, LeMena and Sierra Wall's steeplechase finishes were another 18, and Jennifer Jarnagin began the meet with a fifth-place hammer throw showing for four more. 

Strongman, in her final race as an Oredigger, won a deserved national championship after a standout year that saw her finish as the NCAA cross country runner-up and double-podium indoors at 3,000m and 5,000m. LaMena, meanwhile, completed perhaps the most difficult distance double only 24 hours after winning the national championship in the 3,000m steeplechase and 48 hours after soloing off the front in her prelim for that event; all told, LaMena raced 11 kilometers across all three days of the meet, and scored 18 team points. 

The women's 5K developed quickly into a three-woman race as Strongman and LeMena went off the front with Adams State's Tristian Spence, and the trio worked a commanding gap to the rest of the field within the opening kilometer. The Oredigger pair were content to let Spence do the pacemaking until a savage acceleration with a mile to go broke Spence off of the lead group, and brought Strongman home first with four consecutive finishing laps of 75 seconds or better and LaMena only two seconds behind. Strongman won in a track-record 16:02.06 while LaMena ran 16:04.49.

Gunn took second in a thrilling finish to the men's 5K as he and Daniel Appleford controlled the early going before the field stretched out late in the race. The bell still saw eight men within two seconds of the lead, with Wingate's Luca Poppe holding off Gunn on the home stretch by just over a second; Gunn, who was also the indoor silver medalist, ran 14:07.41. Appleford, who did early pacemaking through the first half of the race before falling back, jumped up three spots on the final lap to finish 10th and earn Second-Team All-America honors.

Mines' only other competitor on the meet's final day was Aidan Bennett, who ended his decorated pole vaulting career with an 18th-place finish. Bennett cleared two bars in the competition getting over 4.86m and 5.01m, but bowed out attempting 5.16m, just a centimeter under his season- and collegiate-best.