COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. – The University of Colorado Colorado Springs completed day one of the Colorado Running Company Mountain Lion Open with some stellar performance inside Mountain Lion Fieldhouse as they head into Saturday.

UCCS finished with a total of six event winners Friday, while also tallying at least five provisional marks after one day of competition.

Distance runners Tim Howley and Hannah Ellis crowned themselves as event winners in the 5000m with times of 15:36.09 and 18:31.82, respectively. Two other Mountain Lions followed right after as Mark Simmons placed second (15:48.98) and Ben Patzer took third (16:18.12) in the 5000m. For the women's 4000m DMR, the team of Maia Austin, Dejah Glover, Layla Almasri, and Skylyn Webb registered a provisional mark with a time of 12:05.05.

Staying consistent with prior meets this season, UCCS jumpers continued to show off their marks and notch top finishes. Derek Valdez claimed a provisional mark in the high jump, as well as a second place finish with a leap of 2.08m. Valdez did not stop there as he repeated with another second place finish in the long jump with a distance of 6.98m, falling just short of his PR of 7.00m. For the women's jumps, Kaija Crowe and Jada Carr each recorded a provisional mark in the long jump, with Crowe cementing a first place finish (5.88m) and Jada Carr taking third with a mark of 5.70m.

In the 200m, UCCS came away with a sweep as freshman Sam Repsher raced to a first place time of 22.71, and junior Nicole Morpurgo ran to a time of 25.72 for a first place finish of her own.

As for the throws competition, Conor Bertles heaved a distance of 16.41m in the men's weight throw to register a second place finish, while also shattering his old PR of 16.11m.

After the 60m and 60m hurdles prelims on Friday, the Mountain Lions seem to be setting themselves up nicely for the finals tomorrow. Deshon Elcock currently has the second fastest time (6.92) in the 60m while seven out of eight runners in the women's 60m finals are from UCCS. Kayla Zink leads the pack with a time of 7.51, fast enough for a provisional mark. For the 60m hurdles, Crowe heads into the finals with the second fastest time of 8.95.  

The Colorado Running Company Mountain Lion Open will continue Saturday, Feb. 9^th with the women's 60m hurdles finals and the men's triple jump at 11 a.m. to start off the day.