CHADRON, Neb. – The MSU Denver women's 4x400 relay set a school record and the Roadrunners' women recorded their highest point total at the RMAC Championships since 2013 while wrapping up the three-day event on Sunday.
The Roadrunners finished in eighth place with 40 points, the best for the program since scoring 48 and finishing seventh 10 years ago.
Meanwhile, the MSU Denver men scored 22 points and placed ninth.
"I am incredibly proud of the way both teams performed this weekend," MSU Denver coach
Janis Christopher said. "We had finalists in just about every event. Some of those events we weren't seeded to have finalists.
"These athletes never gave up. Not once did they stop believing in themselves and their teammates. When that happens, great things can be achieved. We are a family and we are proud Roadrunners."
In the women's 4x400,
Allyssa Romero,
Naleia Sowell,
Audrynn Street and
Teagan Garand finished with an eighth-place time of 3 minutes, 55.43 seconds. That topped the previous school-best time of 3:56.79 that last year's unit ran at the RMAC Championships. Street and Garand were also part of last year's quartet.
Not setting a record, but just as impressive, was the Roadrunners' 4x100 team of
Claire Hummel, Romero,
Jessica Hobson and
Jaivion Lattimore, which placed second in 47.0 seconds, just off its school-record season best of 46.58 that (with the conversion for altitude) is a provisional qualifying time for Division II nationals.
Romero placed in a pair of individual events as well, finishing fifth in both the 400 (56.82) and the 200 (25.31). Her 400 time is the second best of her career and ranks third among all times ever run by MSU Denver athletes in the event.
Hummel, who set the school record in the 200 in Saturday's preliminaries, finished seventh in the 200 at 25.62.
Lattimore also scored individually for MSU Denver, finishing eighth in the 100 in 12.26.
Also scoring for the Roadrunners' women was
Maya Ries, who ran the 100 hurdles in 14.42 to earn third place for the second straight year.
MSU Denver also made an impact in the men's 110 hurdles, with
Anthony Martinez finishing fifth in 14.98 and
Sean Pecenka seventh in 15.29.
The Roadrunners' 4x100 relay of
Zander Irish, Martinez,
Jacob Simpson and
Ethan Loper finished sixth in 43.85, and Loper also anchored the sixth-place 4x400 relay that led off with Irish,
Michael Valdez and
Ty Schauer and ran 3:20.05. That made the 2023 4x400 unit the program's eighth-best on the school's season-by-season list.
In addition to his work on the relays, Loper scored in both the 400 (he was sixth in 49.05) and the 200 (eighth in 22.06).
Nick Nowlen brought home a sixth-place finish in the 800 in 1:55.27 for his third top-six finish at the RMAC Outdoors.
PJ Guidry picked up a point in the triple jump with an eighth-place effort of 13.58 meters.
