GRAND JUNCTION, Colo.— After strong performances in their first championship races, the Colorado Mesa University cross country teams will look to continue the trend and potentially earn national championship berths when they head to Denver for this Saturday's NCAA Division II South Central Regional Championships.
 
MSU Denver will host the regional meet at Washington Park.  The men's 10-kilometer race will begin at 10:30 a.m. while the women's 6K to follow at 11:45 a.m.
 
Course maps, parking information (at nearby South High School), links to live results and other pertinent information can be accessed through the meet information page.
 
A total of 30 teams from the Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference and Lone Star Conference are expected to compete in what is typically the deepest of eight regional meets to be held around this country this Saturday.
 
What's at Stake
 
The top three teams in each race will automatically qualify for the NCAA Division II National Championships on Friday, Dec. 2 in University Park, Washington, just outside Seattle.
 
Additionally, ten men's and ten women's teams from around the country will be selected at-large based largely on the results from the regional meet.  More on that later.
 
The top two individual finishers not on a qualifying team in each race will also automatically qualify as will any other individuals who finish in the top five overall.  Eight additional at-large selections of each gender will also be made.
 
Finally, the top 25 finishers in each race will earn all-region honors from the U.S. Track & Field and Cross Country Coaches Association.
 
Last Time Out
 
The Mavericks last competed on Nov. 5 at the RMAC Championships in Durango, Colorado.  The Maverick men, led by two all-conference performances from Tony Torres and Ethan Abbs, finished fifth the third consecutive year in a deep field.
 
The CMU women, led by now 3-time all-RMAC cross country selection Kira MacGill, finished eighth as a team, their best finish in six years.
 
Torres finished 15^th out of the 118 men's finishers, completing the 8-kilometer course in 25:24.0.  Abbas was 25^th in 25:49.2.  Triston Charles (30^th, 25:55.8) and Kevin DeGree (33^rd, 26:03.8) were just outside earning All-RMAC honors, which went to the top 28 finishers, the first 14 of which earned first team plaudits.
 
The only four teams ahead of the Mavs were all in the nation's top 16 ranked teams at the time, including No. 1 Colorado School of Mines and No. 2 Adams State.  CMU finished ahead of No. 10 Colorado Christian, which finished ninth in the team standings.
 
On the women's side, MacGill finished 22^nd out of 116 finishers with a 6K time of 22:39.5.  She is now just the second 3-time all-conference performer in CMU cross country history joining Hall of Honor inductee Alexis Skarda.
 
Kendall White was CMU's second finisher, taking 41^st overall and 39^th amongst team scorers with a time of 23:46.4.
 
A look at the lineup
 
As the season has reached the business end, teams are permitted to only enter seven runners in each of Saturday's regional championship races.  The top five runners will determine each team's score while the sixth and seventh runners will displace runners from other teams, thus hurting opposing teams' scores. 
 
Maverick Head Coach Shane Niksic has entered Ethan Abbs (25^th), Triston Charles (30^th), Kevin DeGree (33^rd), Peter Martin (78^th), Aidan Mobley (94^th), Mark Testa (53^rd) and Tony Torres (15^th) in the men's race.  He has put Jessie Beck (84^th), Alyssa Britton (53^rd), Megan Hodges (87th), Arianna Kincaid (DNF), Kira MacGill (22^nd), Ricky Maestas (52^nd) and Kendall White (41^st) in the women's race.
 
Casey Amori (96^th) and Lauren Hodges (Did Not Run) will be the Mavs' alternates.
 
Niksic's lineup is made up of his top seven men's finishers from the RMAC Championships.  He has also entered all six of the Mavs' RMAC Women's Championship finishers along with Kincaid, who did not finish the conference race.

Torres has been the Mavs' top finisher at each of the last three races while Ethan Abbs led the Mavs, one spot ahead of Torres, in the season-opening Mountaineer/Cowboy Invite.  MacGill has led the Maverick women in three of the four races this year.  Britton was CMU's top finisher at the home Gig Leadbetter Maverick Stampede, which MacGill skipped due to illness.
 
Note: RMAC Championship places in parenthesis
 
Experienced Mavs
 
Four of the Maverick men entered in Saturday's race have previous regional championship experience, having run last year.  Mark Testa leads that group after taking 46^th as CMU's No. 2 finisher last year.  Triston Charles was 48^th while Ethan Abbs took 90^th.  Tony Torres was battling illness and finished 162^nd after taking 80^th in 2019 as a sophomore.  Testa was 95^th that year.  Torres also finished 107^th as a freshman in 2018 and will make his fourth regional appearance on Saturday.
 
In total, the Mavericks have seven previous regional races under their collective belts.
 
Kira MacGill (20^th), Alyssa Britton (127^th), Ricky Maestas (139^th) and Arianna Kincaid (161^st) were all true or redshirt freshman on last year's regional team.
 
Stepping Up the Distance
 
The men's regional and national championship races are contested over ten kilometers.  CMU's previous four meets were all contested on 8K courses.  The NCAA regional and national championships on the women's side are run on 6K courses, which the Mavs are used to after running that distance at both the Pre-Nationals and RMAC Championships.  CMU's first two women's meets were 5K events.
 
Regional History
 
The Mavericks' best regional championship finish to date came in 2014 when the Maverick men finished sixth to earn their first and only national meet appearance in program history thus far.  Current Maverick Head Coach Shane Niksic captained that team.
 
The Maverick men also finished seventh in 2015 and 2016 and took eighth last year.  They were ninth out of 28 teams in 2017 before taking 13^th in 2018 and 15^th in 2019.
 
The Maverick women also matched best-ever regional finish in 2014, when they also finished sixth to earn their first and thus far only team appearance at the national championships.  The 2008 team had also finished sixth at the Central Region meet.
 
Alexis Skarda also qualified as an individual for three NCAA Championships in 2008, 2010 and 2011.  Alexia Chapman, the last Maverick to run at the national championships, also qualified as an individual in 2016. 
 
The Maverick women finished eighth as a team in 2016 and have placed either 14^th (2019, 2021) or 16^th (2017 & 2018) at each of the last four contested South Central Regional Championships.
 
Region Honors
 
In addition to running for the NCAA qualification spots, runners in Saturday's races will be attempting to earn all-region honors from the U.S. Track & Field and Cross Country Coaches Association.  The organization will recognize the top 25 individual finishers in each race at each of the eight regional championships with all-region honors, which will be officially announced next week.
 
For just the second time in program history, the Mavs had a pair of honorees in 2021 as Jerod Kuhn capped his Maverick cross country career with a 25^th place finish and an all-region honor on the men's side to become just the second Maverick man to receive the plaudit.  Daniel Vavrik was a 2-time honoree in 2014 and 2015.
 
Meanwhile, Kira MacGill, who finished 20^th, became the first Maverick woman in five years to receive the accolade.  Four other CMU women had previously earned the plaudits with Alexis Skarda earning three honors in 2008, 2010 and 2011.  Meanwhile, Alexia Chapman, Lauren Lipski and Reanna Jereb all earned them in 2016 in what has been the only year in program history that the Mavs have had multiple selections in the same season until last season.
 
Rankings
 
Following their strong RMAC Championship performance, the Maverick men moved up a spot to seventh in the latest U.S. Track & Field and Cross Country Coaches Association's regional rankings, which were released last Monday (Nov. 8) after the conference championship weekend.  That is the same spot that the Mavericks had been in the pre-season rankings.  They fluctuated between the No. 8 and 9 spots throughout the rest of the season.
 
The Mavs are also in the "receiving votes" category of the USTFCCCA's latest National Poll (Nov. 9), which include five RMAC and six South Central Region teams, including the top two in Mines and Adams State.  Western Colorado is now ranked seventh after moving up two spots following a third place finish at the RMAC Championships.  Colorado Christian is now ranked 12^th while UCCS is 14^th.  West Texas A&M, ranked sixth in the regional rankings, is 25^th in the national poll and moved up two spots after winning the Lone Star Conference crown.
 
This week's women's field is even deeper with five of the top-10 teams in the nation set to run on Saturday.  Defending national champion Adams State is ranked first while No. 3 Mines and No.4 UCCS held their spots after a 1-2-3 finish at the RMAC meet.
 
LSC Champions Dallas Baptist are ranked seventh while Western Colorado is tenth.  CSU Pueblo moved up six spots to 16^th while Colorado Christian is now ranked 18^th, six spots lower than before the RMAC Championships.
 
West Texas A&M is ranked seventh in the region and 24^th nationally while Westminster is receiving a vote in the national poll as well.
 
What it will take as a team
 
As mentioned above, the top three finishing teams will automatically qualify for the NCAA Division II National Championships.  However, the South Central Region has also typically received multiple at-large selections based on the strength of the region.
 
In 2021, five RMAC and six men's teams from the region were selected as a team for the NCAA Division II National Championships.  All five RMAC teams finished in the top 10 with Mines (2^nd), Adams State (3^rd) and UCCS (5^th) all finishing in the top five nationally.
 
Adams State won last year's national title on the women's side as one of four RMAC teams in the top nine.  Eight teams from the region were selected to the national meet in total.
 
In 2019, a total of six South Central Region men's teams, including three "at-large" squads and four total women's squads qualified for the national championships.
 
The 2020 championships were not contested due to COVID.
 
The ten "at large" berths will then be awarded by the NCAA Division II Men's & Women's Cross Country Committee using the selection criteria, explained at: https://ncaaorg.s3.amazonaws.com/championships/sports/crosstrack/d2/crosscountry/2022-23D2XCC_SelectionProcedures.pdf
 
It is important to note that at-large teams will be selected based on regional place order and that a team cannot be selected ahead of a team that placed in front of them at their respective regional championship meet, making every position in Saturday's results of critical importance.
 
CMU's lone competition against non-RMAC teams this year came at the Oct. 22 D2 Pre-Nationals Meet.  The Maverick men finished 8^th out of 27 teams at that meet and have head-to-head wins over 18 different out of conference and out of region teams, many of them of which are from the West Region.  Only Western Washington, Cal Poly Pomona, Simon Fraser and Biola from the West Region finished ahead of the Mavs.
 
The Maverick women placed 14^th out of 29 teams at the Pre-Nationals, racking up 15 head-to-head victories over other Division II programs from outside the RMAC and the South Central Region.
 
Up Next
 
If the Mavericks do not automatically qualify as a team or individual runners for the national championships, they will await Monday's official selection announcement, which will be posted on NCAA.com no later than 3 p.m. MST (5 p.m. Eastern) to see if they will continue their season on Dec. 2.

The Mavs' indoor track and field season will begin just over a week later on Dec. 10 although most of the Maverick distance runners will not compete that weekend.