Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. – Colorado Mesa’s Justin Thompson and Colorado School of Mines’ Zoe Baker are the Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference Men’s and Women’s Indoor Track and Field Summit Award winners, the league announced Friday.
 
Thompson claims the Men’s Summit Award for the Mavericks after earning a perfect 4.0 grade-point average through the fall semester. A native of Carbondale, Colo., Thompson is currently a redshirt sophomore and competes as a jumper and sprinter for the Mavs’ men’s track and field team and also claimed the Men’s Outdoor Track and Field Summit award last season. He currently ranks first in the RMAC in the long jump this indoor season with his 7.57-meter (24’10.0” feet) effort at the Mines Winter Classic (Feb. 4). That mark also stands as the nation’s fifth-best long jump this season and is a NCAA Division II provisional effort. Thompson is an exercise science major at Colorado Mesa and is set to compete at the 2021-22 RMAC Indoor Track and Field Championships this weekend.
 
Baker is the RMAC Women’s Summit Award winner after securing a flawless 4.0 GPA with a double major in computer science and applied mathematics through the fall semester. She currently ranks among the RMAC’s top-five individuals in the 3,000m and 5,000m events. In the 5,000m, Baker ranks second in the nation with a provisional mark of 16:19.05, which she captured at the David Hemery Valentine Invitational (Feb. 11) in Boston, Mass. That 5k marks not only toppled a Mines program record, which Baker also set, it also stands as the eighth-fastest time in NCAA Division II Indoor Track and Field history. She competes for the Orediggers as a junior but is classified as a senior academically and will also blaze the track this weekend at the RMAC Indoor Track and Field Championships.
 
The RMAC Summit Awards are presented to student-athletes with the highest cumulative GPA that are also competing at the site of the finals for their sport’s championship. All GPAs are based on a straight-grading scale to ensure consistency among nominees. All ties are broken by the total number of credit hours completed through the most recently concluded semester.
 
To be eligible for the award, student-athletes must be a sophomore or above, who have participated in their sport at their institution for at least two years. Student-athletes must be active members of their teams, traveling and competing at the RMAC championship event. Graduate students are not eligible to win the award.
 
Thompson and Baker will be honored during the awards ceremony Saturday, Feb. 26, upon the conclusion of the RMAC Indoor Championships. The 2021-22 RMAC Indoor Track and Field Championships are underway inside Western Colorado’s Mountaineer Field House in Gunnison, Colo. For more information on the indoor championships, visit the RMAC Indoor Track and Field Championships page.