Pack nets two provisional qualifiers, finishes 6th at RMAC
RMAC Indoor Championships Results: CSU-Pueblo, 6th of 10
GOLDEN, Colo. - CSU-Pueblo had a strong final day of competition to close out the 2010 Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference Indoor Championship, seeing two jumpers record provisional-qualifying marks en route to finishing sixth in the conference.
CSU-Pueblo, which was last place last season in its first full season of competition, rode strong performances in jumps and sprints to score 35.5 points, finishing sixth in the 10-team RMAC.
A bulk of the Pack's points came in one event, the triple jump, in which Danita Wyatt (So., Aurora, Colo.) and Krista Wiltberger (RFr., Colorado Springs, Colo.) each qualified provisionally for nationals with personal-best marks. Wyatt recorded two leaps over 11.4 meters, topping out at a 11.49m jump, good enough for third place. Wiltberger offered the Pack a surprise after finishing sixth in preliminaries, uncorking a jump of 11.65m, resulting in a second-place finish. Wyatt and Wiltberger logged six and eight team points between them as the ThunderWolves dominated the event.
In the 60-, 200- and 400-meter dash events, the Pack netted a total of eight team points, garnering five from a fourth-place finish by Blair Gilkes (So., Aurora, Colo.) in the 60-meter. Gilkes was also joined by Wiltberger, who finished eighth. Maya Richards (So., Denver, Colo.) and Vanessa Emerson (Fr., Aurora, Colo.) added eighth-place finishes in the 200 and 400, scoring one team point each.
In the 4x400-meter relay, the Pack shattered a school record with a time of 4:03.10, finishing in third place and grabbing six team points. The foursome in the event consisted of Richards, Emerson, Leanne Carberry (Jr., Idledale, Colo.) and Jazmin Evans (RFr., Parker, Colo.).
In jumps, the ThunderWolves' strength, the Pack scored 18 team points. In addition to the provisional marks set by Wyatt and Wiltberger, Summer Hawkinson (Fr., Colorado Springs, Colo.) finished fifth in the high jump with a 1.6m, or 5-foot-3, jump, scoring four team points.
The ThunderWolves also secured team points in the distance medley (8th place; one point), the pentathlon (7th place finish by Jasmine Rollins (Sr., Colorado Springs, Colo.)) and the hammer throw (8th place finish by Holli Salazar (Fr., Hayden, Colo.)).
The ThunderWolves emerge from the RMAC Championships with four national qualifying marks on the season - two today from Wyatt and Wiltberger, a 200-meter dash provisional qualification by Gilkes, and an automatic qual by Shannon Elliott (Fr., El Paso, Tex.) to start this year's indoor season. Elliott's automatic qual has been forfeited due to an injury, leaving the Pack to await decisions on their provisional qualifiers' eligibility for nationals. Only a fraction of the nation's provisional qualifiers advance to nationals once the nation's performance lists are logged.
The Pack also scored a victory in the "Steel and Silver Series", the all-sports competition between CSU-Pueblo and UC-Colorado Springs. The "Steel and Silver Series" awards four points to the winners of the season series in the 10 sports the two schools share. In women's indoor and outdoor track, the Series' points are awarded to whichever school finishes highest at the conference championships. CSU-Pueblo's sixth place finish was higher the UCCS' 9th place finish, giving the four "Steel and Silver" points in women's indoor track to CSU-Pueblo. Following the RMAC Championships, UCCS holds a 20-10 lead in the Series, with two men's golf points, and four points each in softball and women's outdoor track yet to be decided. The school with the highest cumulative grade-point-average among student-athletes in the schools' common sports are awarded five points.