We continue our trek through the last ten years looking at the top student athletes of the Colorado Mesa athletic programs. The cross-country teams are up this week.
 
The CMU men's cross-country team is one of the younger athletic programs at the university since having their inaugural season back in 2011. Nine short years of history have featured seen some accomplished runners who deemed to wear the maroon and gold.
 
The most accomplished runner in CMU men's XC history is the first person on this list...Danny Vavrik. From 2013-16, Vavrik led the Mavericks to a prominent place within the Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference, especially after his first season. In 2014, the most successful season to date for the program, Vavrik finished 12th at the NCAA South Central Regional which earned him the first USTFCCCA All-Region honors in program history.
 
He would also earn All-RMAC First Team accolades with a 10th place finish at the RMAC Championship. To cap off the season, Vavrik placed 69th at the NCAA Division II Cross Country National Championships.
 
Michael Nelson competed for only two seasons on the cross-country team, however, those two outings did not go without any avail or success. In 2014, Nelson was the top CMU runner at the NCAA National Championships and still holds the program record for highest individual finish at a national title race.
 
Nelson finished first among seven CMU runners at that race when he crossed the finish line 52nd overall. In the same season, Nelson was named all All-RMAC Second Team after placing 17th at the conference championship. In 2015, he followed suit by earning All-RMAC Honor Roll honors despite competing in only three races. 30th place at RMACs and 59th place at regionals are how Nelson ended his CMU cross country tenure.
 
Blake Graf ran for CMU for four seasons from 2014-17. He is the only Maverick, besides Danny Vavrik to earn more than one All-RMAC honors. His first came in his sophomore season, in 2015, after a 26th place finish at the conference championship.
 
His junior year consisted of six solid outings including a season-best 25:04 finish at the Fort Hays State Open.
 
Graf's final season, in 2017, saw him earn his second All-RMAC selection. He also competed in all six races and finished first among all CMU runners in all but one race. At regionals, he recorded a career-best 10K time of 32:11.4.
 
From competitor to now coach, Shane Niksic has been with CMU from the very beginning. Back in the inaugural 2011 season, Niksic was the top team finisher in all seven races
 
Niksic would continue to improve as the years progressed. He finished 75h in the RMAC Championship during his sophomore campaign in 2015 but then elevated to 55th the following year after a personal best 8k time of 27:02.
 
He was the captain for the cross-country team all four years of his career while also competing every spring en route to becoming the first-ever All-American for the men's track and field team.
 
In 2014, Niksic was one of the seven CMU runners to compete at the NCAA National Championships and finished 132nd. After graduation, he would go on to be the assistant cross-country coach at Western Colorado University for the last three seasons. He now serves the same position for the Mavericks after joining the coaching staff this previous offseason.
 
Luke Spitz is the only CMU runner to earn the RMAC Summit Award more than once, he was also the first Maverick to win it in general. The Summit Award is given to the student-athlete with the highest GPA (4.000) competing at the RMAC championships...Spitz did it in back-to-back years from 2017-18.
 
In his first two seasons, Spitz competed in only combined six races but eventually would make a name for himself in his junior campaign. In 2017, the Berthoud, CO native was the No.3 runner for CMU at both the RMAC and South Central Regional Championships.
 
Then, in his senior year, he competed in all five races and led the team in four of them. He finished first among all Maverick runners at regionals after clocking a career-best 10k time of 32:30.2.
 
As the only active CMU runner on this list, Jerod Kuhn has been on the roster since 2017 and is the most recent Maverick to be named to an All-Conference roster.
 
Now a senior, Kuhn was named to the All-RMAC Second Team back in 2018 after a 28th place finish at RMACs and 53rd place performance at regionals. In 2019, Kuhn was the team's top competitor in all five races including both conference and regional championships.
 
One of the milestones Kuhn accomplished in that same season was the 11th place finish at the Fort Hays State Open after a career-best 8K time of 25:04.2. That was enough to earn him the RMAC Runner of the Week Award which is the first in school history among both male and female programs.
 
From Tokyo, Japan, Mako Wanatabe is the only international student to make the All-Decade list. A 2017 All-RMAC Second-Team honoree and the only runner besides Luke Spitz to make the All-RMAC Academic Honor Roll seven times.
 
Back in 2017, Mako finished first among all CMU runners at the Fort Hays State Open and then was the team's No.2 runner in all the other races throughout the season. Wanatabe earned his All-RMAC honors after a 28th place finish at the RMAC Championship, and then followed it up with a 38th place performance at regionals.
 
Men's Cross Country
Daniel Vavrik
Mike Nelson
Blake Graf
Shane Niksic
Luke Spitz
Jerod Kuhn
Mako Watanabe

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It would only make sense that the first national qualifier in CMU women's cross country history is the first name on this list. The Boulder native, Alexis Skarda, was the first female Maverick to reach the NCAA Cross Country Championships back in 2008 and would go on to arguably be the best runner to ever wear a CMU uniform.
 
Skarda filled up her trophy case after a pretty hefty 2010 season. In her junior season alone, she won an individual RMAC Championship, her second USTFCCCA All-Region and USTFCCCA All-American honors, All-RMAC 1st Team honors, three regular-season first-place finishes, and an 8th place finish at the NCAA Championships.
 
Her final season, as a senior in 2011, saw some injuries that prevented Skarda from running in some races, including the RMAC Championship, but she would still rack up a 16th-place finish at regionals and a qualifying spot in the NCAA National Championship.
 
She currently holds the school record for most All-Region, All-RMAC, and All-American awards among all men and women runners.
 
Lauren Lipski ran all four years of her collegiate career at CMU and is one of only four runners in program history to make USTFCCCA All-Region. In her senior year in 2016, the former Arapahoe High School Warrior competed in six races and earned the all-region honors after finishing 16th in the NCAA South Central Regional Championships.
 
In 2014, which can be considered the best year in program history, Lipski was one of six runners to qualify for the NCAA Championships after a 26th-place finish at regionals. In the RMAC Championships, the Centennial native placed 26th and earned All-RMAC Second-Team. In the same season, Lipski also succeeded academically, making All-RMAC Academic First-Team.
 
In 2014, Alexia Chapman finished last out of the six CMU runners competing at the national championship. She finished 222nd which was a whole 116 spots behind the team-leader, Tess Skoe.
 
Two seasons later, Chapman would go on to finish 89th in the exact same race which is currently the third-best finish in a national championship cross country race by any CMU runner. In that same 2016 season, Chapman placed 11th at the NCAA South Central Regional Championships which earned her All-Region honors...that fit quite nicely after her 11th place finish at the conference championships that gave her All-RMAC honors for the first time in her career.
 
Chapman competed all four years at CMU from 2013-16 and stands as the most recent Maverick to receive All-RMAC honors and is only one of five different runners in program history to make all-conference first-team.
 
You can't spell Sarah's last name without "speed." Ironically shes one of the fastest runners from the middle part of the decade. The Estes Park native ran for the Mavericks from 2012-15 with her best year taking place during the historic 2014 season. During that outing, Speedlin earned All-RMAC Second Team honors after her 27th place finish at the RMAC Championships.

To follow suit, she finished 60 at the NCAA South Central Regional and then placed 129th at the NCAA National Championships. She was the fourth-fastest Maverick out of the seven individuals who ran in the national championship.
 
In 2013, her best 6K time was clocked at 25:03 at the South Central Regional Championships. The very next year, she racked up a new career-best 23:13 at the exact same race.
 
Out of the entire 2014 cross country bunch, Skoe finished first of the seven CMU runners at the NCAA National Championship. Despite competing for only two seasons, Skoe accomplished a respectable amount in her tenure.
 
In 2014, Skoe was one of the four Mavericks to earn All-RMAC Second Team honors after placing 28th at the RMAC Championships. She was the fourth CMU runner to cross the finish line at the conference championships and then the fifth Mesa finisher at regionals. However, she crossed first among all CMU runners and 106th overall at the national championship.
 
In her sophomore season, Skoe ran in all six races having three Top 20 finishes and then one Top 5 placement when she finished fourth at the Maverick Open. She also earned All-RMAC Academic Honor Roll recognition in 2015.
 
One of the most recent program alumni, Brent ran for the Mavericks from 2015-19. The Loveland, CO native was the top finisher for CMU in both the RMAC Championships and South Central Regional Championships for two consecutive years.

Her junior year, in 2018, consisted of a 46th place finish at the RMAC Championships and then a 55th place finish at regionals. The next year in 2019, she placed 37th at RMACs and 40th at regionals.
 
Brent is also one of the most academically accomplished runners in school history. A 6x RMAC All-Academic Honor Roll selection and two-time USTFCCCA All-Academic selection.
 
The final selection on the All-Decade Team is considered of the more consistent runners of the first half of the 2010s.
 
Bauer, who competed all four years at CMU from 2011-14, ran in the RMAC Championships every single season with her best finish coming in her senior outing. Bauer actually ended that 2014 season with the best final three performances of her career. The Lancaster, CA native placed 31st at RMACs, 36th at regionals, and then capped it with a 118th-place finish at the NCAA National Championships. Bauer's final race as a Maverick was that national championship meet where she ran a career-best 6K time of 23:02.
 
Women's Cross Country
Alexis Skarda
Lauren Lipski
Alexia Chapman
Sarah Speedlin
Tess Skoe
Ashlyn Brent
Melissa Bauer



Past All-Decade Teams:
Men's and Women's Golf – Sept. 10