PUEBLO, Colo. – The University of Colorado Colorado Springs women's track and field team qualified for the finals in three events after the first day of the 2015 RMAC Outdoor Championships at the Neta and Eddie DeRose ThunderBowl at Colorado State-Pueblo. The 4x100-meter relay team broke the program record in its way to the finals while
Kelly Devlin and
Chelsea Martus qualified in the 1,500-meter and 800-meter runs, respectively.
The relay team ran a raw time of 48.09 seconds and finished fourth in its heat and seventh overall in the preliminaries. The adjusted time of 48.21 seconds is an improvement of more than a half-second over the program-record time set earlier this season at the Colorado Invitational. The team will run in the finals at 12:05 p.m., on Sunday.
Devlin improved on her adjusted season-best time in the 1,500-meter run by more than three seconds to qualify this afternoon. She finished fourth in her heat and No. 10 overall with a raw time of 4:53.16, which will adjust down to a sea-level time of 4:47.27. Devlin will compete in the finals at 12:25 p.m., on Sunday.
Martus finished fourth in the 800-meter run with a career-best adjusted time 2:15.17 to advance to the finals as well. She was the runner-up in her heat with a raw time of 2:15.85 and advanced to the finals with the fastest time among those that did not win a heat. Martus will run the distance again at 1:25 p.m., on Sunday.
Alicia Lawrence and
Amber McAfee both finished one position out of a spot in the finals in their respective events today. Lawrence led three Mountain Lions in the 100-meter dash with a ninth-place performance in 12.63 seconds, and McAfee finished ninth with 2:20.10 in the 800-meter run.
Hayley Gillen was two spots out of the finals with 59.41 seconds in the 400-meter dash with 10th place.
Madison Neher opened the day off for the Mountain Lions with her first 10,000-meter run of the season in 42:35.43. She placed No. 11.
UCCS will continue action on Saturday at 3:55 p.m., when the finals for the 3,000-meter steeplechase begin.
