COLORADO SPRINGS --- Western Colorado track and field competed well at the Colorado Running Company UCCS Invite on Saturday as they finished their last meet of calendar year. The team will take six weeks of competition off before competing at The Power Five meet in Alamosa.
 
The highlight of the meet came when Chelsey Murphy broke her own school record in the 60m hurdles. Murphy having previously held the record at 8.67 seconds, has now improved on that time to set her personal best to 8.60 seconds. In Saturday's race, Chelsey crossed the line just one-hundredth of a second behind the first place finisher, locking in second place.
 
Winning the only individual event for the Mountaineers was junior Kyle Downey as he won the pole vault competition with a clearance of 4.82m (15' 9.75"). This mark is half an inch better than his mark from last weekend; he will still rank tenth in the nation.
 
Placing in the top seven in both their events, Rhys Ryba and Tessa Anderson both competed in the shot put and weight throw. Ryba threw the same distance for both events, placing fourth in the shot put and sixth in the weight throw with throws of 16.16m (53' 0.25"). Anderson finished fifth in the shot put (12.80m/42' 0") and seventh in the weight throw (14.19m/46' 6.75").
 
Finishing fourth in the women's 400m and helping lead her team to a fourth place finish in the 4x400m, Tianna Terrell had a strong performance in Colorado Springs. Terrell went sub-60, running a time of 59.56 in the open 400m, and then helped her team run a time of 4:07.34. Also on the fourth place relay team were Mountaineers Fanta Toure, Mackenzie Burt, and Kayla Nowlin.
 
Western Colorado had two women pole vaulters compete as they finished fifth and seventh, both of them currently sit on the top ten list in the Western record books. Choying O'Brien vaulted over 3.40m (11' 1.75") as Brooke Hoppe cleared a height of 3.25m (10' 8").
 
In the men's 60m hurdles only one Mountaineer made the finals, Joseph Saling, as he went on to clinch a fifth place finish after running 8.53 seconds.
 
The track and field team will not compete as a full team again until The Power Five meet scheduled for Jan. 25 in Alamosa, Colorado. Keep up to date with all things Western Athletics at GoMountaineers.com.