Four Northern Colorado track and field athletes will compete in an NCAA regional meet beginning Wednesday at the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville.
Greeley’s Jesse Hayward will run the 800 meters at the NCAA West First Round meet, and he’ll be joined by teammates Jerome Campbell (110-meter hurdles), Regina Mpigachai (800) and Alexia Austin (110 hurdles).
Campbell is ranked 13th in the 110 hurdles — the highest seeding of the four UNC athletes. Hayward and Mpigachai are both ranked 33rd in the 800 and Austin is ranked 46th in the 100 hurdles.
Campbell and Hayward will run Wednesday. Mpigachai and Austin begin racing Thursday. The hurdles start at 5 p.m. both days with the 800 meters at 7:50 p.m. both days.
All four days of the meet will be shown on ESPN+. Live stats will be available at flashresults.com.
The four UNC athletes competing at the meet match the most in program history in the Division I era, according to the university athletic department.
The meet runs through Saturday and will be held on the same days as the NCAA East Round meet at the University of Kentucky in Lexington. The first-round meets are held to determine qualifiers for the NCAA Championships from June 5-8 at the University of Oregon in Eugene.
Athletes with the top 12 times and distances and the best 12 relay teams at both first-round meets advance to the NCAA Championships in Oregon.
Softball
Erin Caviness, a pitcher on the Bears softball team that qualified for the NCAA Tournament for the second time in two years this spring, was named to an all-region team by the National Fastpitch Coaches Association.
Caviness was named to the NFCA All-West Region third team, association officials announced late last week, becoming the first UNC player selected for NFCA honors in the program’s Division I era.
The NFCA awards honor softball student-athletes from 10 regions with first-, second- and third-team selections. NFCA member head coaches from each respective region nominated student-athletes (eight maximum) and voted for the teams. All awarded student-athletes are then eligible for the 2024 NFCA Division I All-America squads.
Sacramento State graduate student and third baseman Lewa Day was also named to the all-West third team. Day was the only other player selected from the Big Sky Conference. She was the conference’s co-player of the year, sharing the honor with UNC sophomore first baseman Amailee Morales.
Caviness appeared in 31 of the Bears’ 53 games. She led the pitching staff in multiple categories including starts (26), appearances (31), complete games (20), ERA (2.56), wins (17), shutouts (9), saves (2), innings pitched (169.1) and opponents’ batting average (.227).
She set a school record with 180 strikeouts, and her 17 wins were one short of the school record, also based on statistics from the Division I era. Caviness’ 20 complete games are second on the program record list.
She became the first UNC player in the program’s Division I era to throw a perfect game on Feb. 23 against the University of California Santa Barbara.
Caviness was a senior this spring. She’s from Thornton and pitched scholastically at Holy Family Academy in Broomfield.
“We are so proud of the year that Erin had,” Bears coach Dedeann Pendleton-Helm said in a news release. “What a well-deserved honor amongst so many talented players in our region. Erin will certainly be missed.”
Baseball
Kai Wagner, Garrett Fisher and Murphy Gienger earned All-Summit League honorable mention honors, league staff announced Tuesday.
The players on the all-league teams were selected by the six head coaches.
Wagner, a sophomore from Parker, was named the league’s peak performer of the week Monday.
He was selected for the all-league honorable mention as a third baseman after leading the Summit League in batting average (.360) and ranking third in on-base plus slugging percentage (OPS) at 1.048, fourth in slugging percentage (.620), sixth in home runs (9) and eighth in RBI (38).
Fisher, a senior from Fort Collins, was named to the all-league team as a designated hitter. He led the Summit League with a .461 on-base percentage and was eighth in batting average (.328), fifth in on-base plus slugging percentage (OPS) at .988 and 10th in slugging percentage (.527).
Gienger, a senior from Castle Rock, was selected as a relief pitcher. The right-hander had a 4.66 earned run average (ERA), which was fourth-lowest in the league. He pitched 65 2/3 innings, which was seventh-most this spring.
He won five games, which ranked fifth among qualifying pitchers. Gienger also ranked fifth in the league with 19 strikeouts looking. He had 78 strikeouts as of the end of the regular season.
Gienger allowed 34 earned runs, third-fewest in the league, and he gave up the fourth-fewest triples (2), sixth-fewest doubles (12) and 10 home runs, which ranked ninth.
UNC begins play Wednesday in the Summit League Tournament in Tulsa, Oklahoma. The Bears are the fourth seed and play No. 1 Omaha at 11 a.m. Mountain Time at J.L. Johnson Field. The tournament runs through Saturday.
