COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. – Chayton Bynes earned the RMAC Outdoor Track Field Athlete of the Year honors, giving him a clean sweep of that honor across the 2025-26 indoor and outdoor seasons, while also highlighting nine Chadron State All-RMAC selections announced on Friday.
Bynes, a redshirt junior from Chadron, has now earned at least a share of the Field Athlete of the Year award in four consecutive track seasons. Bynes was a Co-Field Athlete of the Year in both indoor and outdoor during the 2024-25 season and has now won the award outright in both seasons for 2025-26.
Chadron State had eight student-athletes with a total of nine marks make the All-RMAC teams, which are based on the order of finish at the RMAC Championships. First, second and third-place finishers are named First Team All-RMAC, while fourth, fifth and sixth-place finishers earn Second Team All-RMAC recognition. Members of first-place relay teams get First Team honors, while second-place relays are Second Team.
CSC's First Team selections were RMAC Champion
Tavion Leatherdale (men's discus), silver medalists
Chayton Bynes (men's long jump),
Courtney Williams (men's decathlon) and
Shelby Ekwall (women's shot put) and bronze medalist
Ayden Hartzell (men's 400 meters). Earning Second Team accolades were
Kristie Jordan (fourth, women's shot put),
Ryan Clapper (fifth, men's 200 meters) and
Ethan Norris (sixth, men's decathlon) while Hartzell also grabbed a Second Team spot by finishing sixth in the 200.
Bynes's special award win, voted on by the league's head coaches, comes after the now four-time All-American broke his own school record in the triple jump on three separate occasions. He set a new facility record at the Chadron State track by jumping 15.73 meters (51 feet, 7.25 inches) in his first competition of the outdoor season, then culminated the year by leaping 15.80m (51-10) and 15.78m (51-9.75) on back-to-back jumps at the NCAA Division II National Championships on Memorial Day weekend in Emporia, Kansas.
Bynes eventually placed fifth at nationals in the triple jump, earning the third top-five NCAA finish of his career. While he did not compete in his premier event at the RMAC Championships, Bynes also needed just one jump of 7.38 meters to place second in that event and earn another First Team All-RMAC accolade.
Colorado Mesa's Mateo Casados (Men's Track Athlete of the Year), Adams State's Thibault Tauziede (Freshman of the Year) and Colorado School of Mines's Matt Sparks (Coach of the Year) joined Bynes as voted-on special award winners.
On the women's side, Colorado School of Mines's Emily LaMena and New Mexico Highlands's Patreece Clarke shared Co-Track Athlete of the Year honors while CSU Pueblo's Febe Wessels was the Field Athlete of the Year. Colorado School of Mines also had the Women's Freshman of the Year in Sierra Wall, while Sparks and UCCS's Ross Fellows shared Co-Women's Coach of the Year honors.
