Buffaloes Qualify Six To NCAA Championships

BOULDER – The University of Colorado track and field program has qualified six student-athletes to the 2022 NCAA Indoor Track and Field National Championships Mar. 11-12 in Birmingham, Ala.
 
The Buffs will send one male athlete, Eduardo Herrera, in the men's 3,000-meter run. The women's squad will send five: Rachel McArthur in the mile, Micaela Degenero in the mile, Madie Boreman in the mile, Emily Covert in the 5,000-meter run and Avery McMullen in the pentathlon. The five CU women competing at nationals in individual events is the most since 2001.
 
The women's trio is the most in the mile with Washington as the only other school with multiple participants in the race. Boreman is seeded eighth in the race at 4:33.59, while Degenero is 11th and McArthur is 14th. The top seed in the event is Emily Mackay of Binghamton at 4:30.94. All of these races look to be quick with only four seconds separating the entire field. There are six women that have run under 4:33 and two under 4:32.
 
This will be the first indoor national event for all three women for CU. McArthur previously was a part of a distance medley relay when she competed for Villanova. All three women competed at the 2021 NCAA Outdoor National Championships with Degenero and McArthur qualifying in the 1,500-meter run and Boreman in the steeplechase. Degenero finished as a First Team All-American with a sixth-place finish while Boreman was a First Team All-American in the steeplechase in 2017.
 
Covert is the other women's distance runner and is ranked eighth in the 5,000-meter run. Her time of 15:35.40 is just more than two seconds from the fourth-best mark this season. NCAA Cross Country Champion Courtney Wayment of BYU is the top seed at 15:15.46, a 12-second advantage on the field. There are two other women with marks at 15:27 before the rest of the field is separated by just eight seconds between fourth and 16th. Covert will have to deal with a trio of NC State runners.
 
Covert earned her first All-American honor this year at the NCAA Cross Country Championships.
 
The final woman will also be the first on the track next week with McMullen in the pentathlon. McMullen is the first combined events woman for CU to compete at the NCAA Indoor Championships in CU's NCAA history. She joins the small list of Lori West, Mitzi McMillen and Jane Frederick who all competed at the AIAW Championships with McMillen and Frederick winning it all. This is McMullen's first NCAA Championships experience.
 
McMullen is ranked fifth in the event with a score-record 4,231 points. Florida's Anna Hall is the top seed at 4,618 points. McMullen is the last athlete in the event that broke 4,200 points with the eighth-best mark at 4,156.
 
On the men's side, Herrera is the lone CU man and ranked fifth with a school record time of 7:42.67. Notre Dame's Yared Nuguse is the top seed with an NCAA record time of 7:38.13. Squeezed between them is a pair of NAU runners and an Arkansas runner. All of the men in the field are separated by just seven seconds with the final time entered at 7:45.80. There are six men that have run 7:45 and change, while five have run 7:43.
 
This is Herrera's first trip to the indoor championships. He was a second-team All-American in 2019 in the outdoor 1,500-meter run.
 
Live coverage of the meet will be streamed on ESPN3 on Friday, Mar. 11 starting at 9 a.m, while streaming will begin Saturday at 9:30 a.m. The meet will be re-aired Sunday, Mar. 13 on ESPNU at 7:30 p.m. MT. Live results will be available here.
 

 [SW1]