NEW ORLEANS, La. – It is championship week for the University of Colorado Colorado Springs track & field teams as the Mountain Lions will travel to Birmingham, Ala. with a women's national ranking of No. 4 (110.07 points) and a men's ranking of No. 13 (58.42 points), as announced Monday by the United States Track & Field and Cross Country Coaches Association.

Grand Valley State University's women's team (307.19 points) and Ashland University's men's team (215.47 points) both currently rank No. 1 in the country.

The Mountain Lions will be sending a total of 15 student-athletes to the NCAA Division II Indoor Track & Field Championships with eight qualifiers and one alternate on the women's side and six national qualifiers on the men's side. UCCS' eight women entries is the fourth most among schools who are heading to the national stage.

Freshman Brian Mosley Jr. makes his first appearance at NCAA Championships by qualifying for the 60m after racing to a converted 6.77s seed time at conference championships. The distance duo of Evan Graff and Afewerki Zeru will be representing the Mountain Lions in three different events as Graff qualifies for the mile and Zeru solidifies his spot in both the 3000m and 5000m. For field events, UCCS loads up in the long jump as the only school with two student-athletes competing. Junior Peter Ackah's auto mark of 7.75m brings him into the event as the No. 2 seed with sophomore Peyton Turnage joining Ackah as the No. 8 seed. The final event with black & gold in the mix will be the triple jump, and junior Dakota Abbott will be the guy as he carries the No. 6 seed mark of 15.24m into the event.

The women's national qualifiers will be heavily loaded with upperclassmen, starting with senior Kayla Zink who enters the 60m as the No. 2 seed with a converted 7.51s time. In the mile, the Mountain Lions will be represented by senior Layla Almasri and sophomore Riley McGrath who carry the No. 3 (4:48.42) and No. 7 seed (4:49.49) respectively. Both Almasri and McGrath aren't finished there as they will also compete in the women's DMR with teammates Ellie Enderle and Michela Hewitt who all ran an impressive No. 5 seeded time of 11:37.34 last weekend at conference championships. To round out the track events, junior Hannah Ellis qualifies for the 5000m after clocking a time of 16:57.17 at the Colorado Running Company UCCS Open on Feb. 12. Off the track it will be junior Lydia Pavlenko and senior Hannah Meek who will compete in three different field events between the two of them. In the high jump, Pavlenko carries a 1.72m national qualifying mark as the No. 12 seed to make her first appearance at nationals as a Mountain Lion. With the No. 1 long jump mark in Division II, Meek heads to nationals as the No. 1 seed in the event and will make another event appearance in the triple jump with the No. 4 seed mark of 12.46m. Senior Dejah Glover will also be making the familiar trip to Birmingham, Ala. as a DMR alternate.

The 2021 NCAA Championships will begin on Thursday, Mar. 11 with the 60m men's final at 10 a.m. (MT). 

2021 USTFCCCA National Rankings
 
1/26:     MEN: #9
             WOMEN: #4
2/2:       MEN: #9
             WOMEN: #7
2/9:       MEN: #11
             WOMEN: #9
2/16:     MEN: #11
             WOMEN: #4
2/23:     MEN: #13
             WOMEN: #6
3/2:       MEN: #12
            WOMEN: #5
3/8:       MEN: #13
            WOMEN: #4