Just like she did over her four years at Montezuma-Cortez High School, track standout Aryelle Wright continues to raise the bar at Colorado School of Mines.
In her fifth national championship meet in a storied middle-distance career for the Orediggers, Wright topped her highest placement in the championships and beat her own school record in the 800 meters.
Wright, a senior pursuing both her bachelor’s and master’s degrees in quantitative biosciences and engineering, raced to a fifth-place finish at the Division II National Championships in Virginia Beach, crossing the line in 2 minutes, 7.6 seconds.
Wright qualified for the event finals with a personal best and school record effort of 2:08.3 – only to reset her mark less than 24 hours later and become the first Oredigger woman to earn First Team All-American honors in the 800 meters.
At the weekend’s conclusion, Wright had eclipsed her own personal best by nearly two seconds, and helped lead the Oredigger women to the program’s best team finish – an eighth-place effort with 24 points.
The individual performance was Wright’s third appearance in the Division II indoor national meet, joining 11th- and ninth-place finishes in 2021 and 2022, respectively. She also qualified for the outdoor championships in each of the past two years, and will seek to continue that streak this spring. In all, she has collected Second Team All-American honors four previous times, so her climb onto the national podium in Virginia helped her boast a new high-water mark for CSOM women’s middle distance running.
Wright, along with freshman sister Avery, helped propel Mines to the program’s first Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference indoor track and field championship just two weeks earlier. Wright helped anchor the conference champion 4x400-meter relay team, while Avery earned all-league honors in the 60-meter hurdles and pentathlon.
