UNIVERSITY PLACE, Wash.— Thanks to three top-50 finishes, including a 14^th place finish from Tony Torres, the Colorado Mesa University men's cross country team finished a strong eighth out of 27 teams in Saturday's D-II Pre-Nationals Meet here at Chambers Creek Regional Park.
 
The Mavericks scored 243 points and edged Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference rival Black Hills State by 27 points.
 
National No. 1 Colorado School of Mines had the top three finishers, five of the top eight and six of the top nine to dominate the meet.  The Orediggers had a team score of just 19 points, easily out-pacing No. 5 Chico State and No. 10 Western Colorado, which finished second and third with 83 and 91 points, respectively.
 
The three other nationally-ranked teams in the field were fourth, fifth and sixth.  No. 20 Western Washington was fourth with 143 points while No. 25 Cal Poly Pomona took fifth with 158, just ahead of No. 22 Simon Fraser, which had 174.
 
Biola was sandwiched in between the nationally-ranked squads and the Mavericks with 229.
 
In the individual results, Torres completed the 8-kilometer course in 24 minutes, 16 seconds.
 
Redshirt sophomore Triston Charles was the Mavs' No. 2 man, finishing 38^th in 24:53.7 while Ethan Abbs was 47^th in 25:04.  They scored 35 and 42 team points, respectively.
 
CMU's Kevin Degree was 78^th in 25:27.3 while Peter Martin also finished inside the top 100 of the 223-man field, placing 96^th in 25:42.4.
 
Mark Testa was the Mavs' sixth man in 102^nd place and crossed the finish line in 25:48.0 while Casey Amori took 144^th in 26:37.0.  Aiden Mobley was right behind in 147^th place with a time of 26:38.6.
 
The Maverick women also finished in the top half of the field, taking 14^th out of 29 teams.
 
The Mavericks will resume their season on Nov. 5 at the RMAC Championships in Durango, Colorado.