THIS WEEK'S ACTION

• The University of Colorado Colorado Springs track & field teams will head south to the campus of Colorado State University Pueblo for the second consecutive weekend as they prepare to compete at the Spank Blasing Open on March 25-26.
• Much like last weekend, Friday's action will consist solely of throws events with the hammer and javelin throws set to take place beginning at 2 p.m. Running events will be the first to get started on Saturday at 9 a.m., followed by field and throws events at 10 a.m.

MEET INFORMATION

• Meet Information, Meet Schedule, Live Results and Live Stream for the Spank Blasing Open can be found at the below links as well as on the respective schedule pages for UCCS Men's and Women's Track & Field.
  • Meet Information
  • Meet Schedule
  • Live Results
  • Live Stream

LAST TIME OUT

• The Mountain Lions opened the 2022 outdoor season last weekend at the Dr. Dan Caprioglio Early Bird Open at CSU Pueblo and managed to post an exceptional 16 event wins while breaking two school records and tallying a total of 12 provisional marks. 
• A pair of school records fell on the first day of the season-opening meet on Friday, with Sawyer Christopher toppling the javelin throw record with a first place and national qualifying mark of 61.98m while graduate student Sydney Marr took down the women's record for the hammer throw with a second-place heave of 51.33m
• Redshirt sophomore Justyn Loper added a provisional mark in the men's hammer throw with a mark of 56.93m that placed first in the field of 13 competitors.
• UCCS added 10 additional provisional marks on day two at CSU Pueblo, including seven from the Mountain Lion jumps group.
• Redshirt senior Hannah Meek finished at the top of the pack in the women's long jump with a national qualifying jump of 5.92m. At the men's long jump, Peterson Bohannon and Peyton Turnage put their names on the national qualifying list as they took the top two spots in the flight. Bohannon recorded the fourth furthest long jump in UCCS history at 7.46m to provisionally qualify for nationals and was joined by Turnage, who reached a distance of 7.37m.
• In the men's triple jump, Dakota Abbott popped off a monster leap of 15.66m to win the event and vault himself to the top of the Division II national qualifying leaderboard at this point in the season. On the women's side, Audrey Bloomquist hit a personal best and provisionally qualifying mark of 11.99m to earn a first-place finish in the women's triple jump.
• Tanner Walsh and Skye Ciccarelli combined to add two more provisional marks at the men's high jump, each clearing a national qualifying height of 2.05m and finishing tied for first in the event.
• Graduate student Dawson Hopkinson worked his way onto the DII outdoor provisional list after clearing 4.94m as the top finisher in the men's pole vault.
• On the track, hurdler Dillon Andrews won the 400m hurdles race with an altitude-converted provisional time of 52.93s while redshirt senior Kayla Zink took first place in the 100m dash and provisionally qualified for nationals with an altitude-converted time of 11.84s.

USTFCCCA NATIONAL & REGIONAL RANKINGS

• The initial USTFCCCA Regional and National rankings for the 2022 outdoor season are set to be released on Monday, March 28 and Tuesday, March 29, respectively.  

NATIONAL QUALIFYING MARKS

• Click HERE to view a full breakdown of the Mountain Lion's National Qualifying marks through the first meet of the outdoor season along with their conference and national ranks.

AWARD WINNERS

• On Friday, March 18, UCCS women's mid-distance/distance coach was named the USTFCCCA Women's Assistant Coach of the Year for the South Central region after coaching the UCCS women's distance runners to a total of eight All-America nods at the 2021-22 NCAA DII Indoor Championships.
• With two of the three major championships in the books (XC, Indoor T&F), the UCCS women's team ranks tied for fifth in the USTFCCCA Program of the Year standings with 22 points.

SCHOOL RECORDS

• The Mountain Lions saw a pair of outdoor school records fall in their season-opening meet:
  • Sawyer Christopher: Javelin Throw – 61.98m
  • Sydney Marr: Hammer Throw – 51.33m

UCCS UNDER HEAD COACH ROSS FELLOWS

• Head Coach Ross Fellows is currently in his fourth season at the helm of the UCCS track & field program after serving as the co-head coach for two seasons. Under Fellows' leadership, the Mountain Lions have experienced unprecedented success as both the men's and women's teams have broken through for their first indoor and outdoor conference championships in program history. All told, the Mountain Lion men's and women's programs have combined to win ten RMAC team championships and 64 RMAC individual championships throughout Fellows' career at UCCS.
• Fellows has coached three RMAC Freshman of the Year, six RMAC Track Athletes of the Year and five RMAC Field Athletes of the Year while having eight student-athletes earn RMAC Athlete of the Meet honors at conference championship meets. The ten-time RMAC Indoor/Outdoor Coach of the Year has also mentored five individual national champions and a total of 95 All-Americans.

UPCOMING MEET

• UCCS continues their outdoor season with a trip to Grand Junction, Colo., where they will compete at the Maverick Multi & Open hosted by Colorado Mesa University on April 1-2.

SOCIAL
Twitter - @GoMountainLions
Instagram - @gomountainlions
Facebook – Go Mountain Lions
 
As a member of the Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference, the University of Colorado Colorado Springs competes in 16 varsity sports in NCAA Division II intercollegiate athletics.