Friday, March 10, 2017
Colorado Mesa’s D’Angelo Foster, who started the day in last place in the 14-athlete heptathlon field at the NCAA Division II Indoor Track and Field National Championships, rallied for a seventh-place finish to give the Mavericks an All-American at the meet in Birmingham, Alabama.
Foster, a junior, used his third-place finish in the 1,000 meters to break his own school record in the event with 5,160 points. His mark of 14 feet, 11 inches in the pole vault moved him to eighth from 12th. He was elevated to seventh after a competitor was disqualified in the 1,000.
SWIMMING AND DIVING
Sage D’Ambrosia earned his second All-America award of the national championships and third of his career with his sixth-place finish in the 1-meter springboard.
D’Ambrosia had a score of 466.45, which was more than 25 points greater than his score in preliminaries earlier Friday. Mesa freshman Noah Macomber took 10th at 419.2.
CMU senior Mary Saiz took 13th in the 100 backstroke. She’ll compete today in the 200 backstroke, an event she finished second in as a junior.
Eric Berg was 21st in the 100 backstroke and Chris Radomski was 25th in the 200 butterfly. Ryan Gifford finished 31st and teammate Sam Bryant 32nd in the 500 freestyle.
The men’s 800 freestyle relay of Bryant, Ryan Gifford, Jerry Veneris and Josh Bedford finished 11th in a school-record time of 6:36.77.
Baseball
Bligh Madris hit for the cycle, leading No. 17 Colorado Mesa to a 10-8 victory over CU-Colorado Springs.
Madris went 4 for 5, and his leadoff triple in the top of the ninth inning set up the go-ahead run in the Mavericks’ seventh straight victory.
Colorado Mesa (12-5, 5-0 RMAC) led 4-1 after three innings, but UCCS (8-8, 3-2) tied the game with two runs in the fourth inning and one in the fifth on a pair of home runs.
Down 8-5 after Scott Martinez hit a two-run home run in the bottom of the seventh, Madris pulled CMU within one run in the eighth. After Kyle Serrano doubled, Madris drove a home run to center to cut the deficit to 8-7.
PJ Gonzalez then singled and stole second and tied the game 8-8 on a base hit to right by Josh Shapiro.
A pair of runners reached in the eighth against Brick Paskiewicz but he struck out the final two batters.
Madris’ triple to the wall in center gave the Mavericks the start they needed in the ninth, and Gonzalez was hit by a pitch. A throwing error when Gonzalez attempted to steal second allowed him to advance and Madris to score the go-ahead run. Gonzalez scored an insurance run on a balk.
Madris doubled and scored in the first and singled in the fifth.
Paskiewicz (2-0) struck out two of three batters he faced in the ninth.
TENNIS
Colorado Mesa’s teams dropped a pair of duals at Newman University in Wichita, Kansas.
Mesa’s women’s team got a pair of victories in a 7-2 loss, with Katie and Kristen Kirby winning 8-4 at No. 1 doubles and Kristen Kirby winning 6-1, 2-6, 10-7 at No. 1 singles. The CMU men lost to Newman 9-0, with sophomore Lucas Martin going three sets before falling 6-4, 5-7, 10-5 at No. 4 singles.
Kirby went three sets but lost at No. 1 singles against Dallas Baptist, which was the closest match of Mesa’s 9-0 loss. The men dropped a 7-2 decision against Washburn, with Oliver Lindqvist and Will Agritelley winning 8-6 at No. 2 doubles and Lindqvist prevailing 9-8(8) at No. 5 singles.