GRAND JUNCTION, Colo. – Naleia Sowell won the women's 400 meters while smashing her own school record, leading an MSU Denver women's team that broke four school records overall while having one of its best RMAC Outdoor Track & Field Championships in program history.
 
Sowell ran to a blistering 54.30-second clocking in the 400, which is 1.15 seconds faster than the school record she set earlier this spring and 1.14 seconds faster than her preliminaries time on Friday that made her the No. 1 seed for the final. Even with the conversion for altitude to 54.41, Sowell now ranks 15^th in Division II this season, and is in good position to qualify for the NCAA Division II National Championships.
 
The junior is MSU Denver's first women's RMAC Outdoor individual champion since Breanna Hemming doubled in the 800 and 1,500 in 2013.
 
Sowell also anchored the Roadrunners' third-place 4x400 relay that broke the program record of 3:55.43 by a stunning 9.23 seconds, finishing in 3:46.20. That's a provisional qualifying time for Division II Nationals – 3:46.64 after the conversion – that ranks 39^th in the country, and is actually higher considering 14 times ahead of them are from schools with more than one entry on the list.
 
Sowell also ran the anchor leg on the fifth-place 4x100 that clocked 47.27, the second-best mark in program history on the yearly list and the fifth-fastest time ever turned in by the Roadrunners in that event.
 
But that wasn't all for MSU Denver, which finished eighth as a team with 37 points, its fourth-highest total in the meet in program history.
 
Jocelyn Korbe finished seventh in the heptathlon – helped by a personal-best 800 of 2:42.59 to cap the seven-event program – lifting her to a school-record 4,237 points.
 
And Grace Solarin topped her own school record in the shot put with an eighth-place heave of 12.77 meters (41 feet, 10 ¾ inches).
 
Picking up four points each for the Roadrunners with fifth-place finishes were Maya Ries in the 100 hurdles (14.30) and Allyssa Romero in the 400 (56.04).
 
Romero anchored the 4x100 and ran the opening leg on the 4x400, while Claire Hummel ran the opening leg of the 4x100 and the third leg of the 4x400. Audrynn Street was on the longer relay, while Jessica Hobson was on the sprint relay.
 
The eight-place team finish matched last year's team as the program's best since 2013.
 
Meanwhile, the MSU Denver men finished 10^th with 10 ½ points for the weekend, with nine points coming Sunday.
 
The 4x100 relay of Jacob Simpson, Isaiah Williams, Aden Guenther and Owen Clarke finished fifth in 43.36, while Sean Pecenka added three points with a sixth-place finish in the 110 hurdles with a personal-best 14.93 that makes him the program's fourth-fastest ever in the event.
 
Trenton Smith added a point with an eighth-place finish in the 110 hurdles (15.41) and the 4x400 relay of Clarke, Simpson, Ty Schauer and Elijah Garcia finished eighth in 3:23.96.