Mountain Lions on track: Looking forward to conference

On Feb. 19 the Colorado School of Mines hosted its annual Twilight Meet, a chance for local teams to get a final tune-up in before the RMAC championships.

Despite the small field, the black and gold Mountain Lions did not disappoint. Freshman Lauren Graham added this meet to her list of individual victories in the pole vault clearing 3.50m. Despite the victories she still wants to do better, "I'm still a little frustrated about my last attempt at 12'5'' because I still don't even know what I hit the bar with, and it fell down as I was getting off of the pit. But, it does give me confidence going into conference next week because I know that I can clear that bar and the next one." 

Coach David Harmer agreed, "Things went well. We (had) some very encouraging performances."

During the second heat of the Men's 800 meter, one competitor was not watching and stepped onto the track. Senior Alex Vasquez recounts, "We had our heat set up perfect, David [Harmer] would take us through 400 then Russ [Slade] through 600 and me and Chris [Reynolds] finish. But, at the beginning of the race, this guy was standing on the track and we all collided and [it] just messed us up."

As the race developed, fortune didn't favor the Mountain Lions. "Things went well and I moved to the front only to get cut off again on the last turn by some guy with a video camera. I ended up winning the heat only to miss provisional by a narrow margin, something I felt positive about with how I felt being sick. I feel like if the trip ups hadn't happened, I would have qualified, but again, that was out of my control," recounted junior Captain Chris Reynolds.

Despite the adversity, Reynolds is confident going into next week. "I feel like because I've won my last five races on the track that I'm in a position to go for it at Conference, hopefully qualify for Nationals, and try and win the race. Overall, I feel like our team as a whole is ready to go all out at conference and that we'll again set more and more records that last year. Everyone is ready."

"I'm excited to get out there and race Conference, the guys are fit, I'm excited to see what we can do," explained freshman Sam Feldotto.