GRAND JUNCTION, Colo.— After three preparatory meets over the last five weeks, the Colorado Mesa University Maverick cross country teams will begin the championship portion of their season this Saturday when they travel to Denver and Washington Park for Saturday's Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference Championships, most certainly the most competitive conference championship throughout all of Division II Cross Country.
The women's 6K race will get underway at 10:45 a.m. while the men's 8K race will follow at 11:35 a.m.
All 15 RMAC teams are expected to compete in the meet, hosted by MSU Denver.
Results can be accessed here and more information about the meet, including course maps can be found on the
RMAC Championship webpage, which also includes a link to the online championship merchandise store. Action photos from the meet will also be posted on that page following the meet.
What's at Stake
In addition to conference team titles, Saturday's races will determine the 2023 All-RMAC teams and many other awards, which will be presented following the race. The top 14 individual finishers in each race will earn First Team All-RMAC plaudits with the winner being named as the RMAC Runner of the Year. The 15
th-28
th place finishers will each be named to the second team.
The RMAC Freshman of the Year awards will also be given to the top freshman in each race while the RMAC Summit Awards will be given to the student-athlete with the highest GPA in each race.
The RMAC Coach of the Year awards will be determined by a vote of the head coaches and will be announced at a later date.
Last Time Out
After beginning the season in two small meets close to and at home in Gunnison and Grand Junction,
the Mavericks raced in the Lewis University Crossover Invitational on Oct. 7 in suburban Chicago (Romeoville, Illinois).
The Maverick women finished 17
th amongst 33 teams while the men placed 20
th out of 31 teams in a loaded field that included ten nationally-ranked women's squads and eight such men's teams.
Individually, Maverick redshirt junior
Kirstin Williams placed amongst the top 10 percent of the women's finishers, placing 27
th with a 6K time of 21:56.7.
Megan Hodges also recorded a 72
nd place finish with a time of 22:42.8, more than two minutes faster than her previous career 6K best.
Meanwhile,
Triston Charles led the Maverick men with a 42
nd place time of 24:54.9 over eight kilometers.
Chase Brown (93
rd, 25:20.7) and
Kevin DeGree (96
th, 25:22.8) also cracked the top 100 of the men's standings.
A look at the lineup
Teams are permitted to enter up to nine athletes in each of Saturday's RMAC 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.
The eighth and ninth runners for each team will not figure into the team scoring process, but teams do not have to declare in advance who those eighth and ninth runners will be, thus anyone can end up being part of the team score.
Maverick Head Coach
Shane Niksic plans to race his full allotment of nine men and nine women in a youthful lineup. Only five of the 18 competed at last year's RMAC Championships.
The men's lineup includes
Jackson Baker,
Chase Brown,
Nick Cockerel,
Drexel Cox,
Jacob Dalrymple,
Kevin DeGree,
Ricky Diaz,
Aidan Mobley and
Nathan Sanches. The women's lineup includes
Jessie Beck,
Jayna Boonstra,
Megan Hodges,
Lauren Hodges,
Arianna Kincaid,
Taylor Kincaid,
Kate Linstedt,
Autumn McQuitty and
Kirstin Williams.
DeGree finished 33
rd as the Mavs' No. 3 finisher last year while and Mobley finished 94th as the Mavs' seventh man. Beck was CMU's fifth finisher on the women's side and placed 84
th at last year's RMAC Championships while
Megan Hodges was 87
th. They were the Mavs' fifth and sixth finisher.
Arianna Kincaid did not finish last year's RMAC Championships but had run at the 2020 and 2021 conference meets placing 94
th and 98
th, respectively.
Deep Fields
As is usually the case, the Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference is absolutely loaded once again, per the latest
U.S. Track & Field and Cross Country Coaches Association Division II National Coaches' Poll, released last Wednesday (Oct. 11).
The RMAC men's field will include eight nationally-ranked teams, including the No. 1 and three of the top five squads. Colorado School of Mines is the defending national champion and unanimous No. 1 in the poll while Adams State and Colorado Christian and ranked fourth and fifth, respectively. No. 7 Western Colorado is also near the top of the poll while No. 23 UCCS, No. 27 New Mexico Highlands, No. 29 CSU Pueblo and No. 30 Fort Lewis area also ranked further down the poll.
The RMAC women's poll is nearly as deep with seven nationally-ranked squads and even-more top heavy with five of the top seven teams in the country coming out of the conference. Adams State, the defending national champions are ranked second ahead of Mines and Western Colorado with UCCS and CSU Pueblo sitting sixth and seventh, respectively. No. 13 Colorado Christian and No. 25 Fort Lewis are also included in the poll.
RMAC History
Adams State's women, who are also the defending NCAA Division II National Champions, have won 10 of the last 11 RMAC women's titles and 33 overall since the first women's championship in 1981. The Grizzlies have also had 30 individual champions since 1983.
Western is the only other women's team to have won the team crown, doing so eight times, most recently in 2020. The Mountaineers have also had seven individual champions. CMU (Alexis Skarda, 2010), Fort Lewis and Southern Utah have had one individual champion.
The Mines men have won four straight and six of the last seven RMAC titles after Adams State and Western dominated the conference for over three decades.
Adams State has won 37 RMAC titles, including two shared crowns, while Western has claimed 13, one of which they shared with the Grizzlies.
Mines has also had the last four and five of the last six individual championships with Dillon Powell having won the last two. He has graduated.
Adams States's Maggie McCleskey is the defending women's individual champion while teammate Briana Robles, who is also expected to run on Saturday, won the 2021 title.
CMU History
The Maverick women finished eighth at last year's RMAC Championships, their highest finish since also taking eighth in 2016. Their best ever finishes were third place team tallies in 2008 and 2009. The Mavs also tied for third back in 1991, when five teams competed.
More recently, CMU took fourth in 2014.
CMU's men, who first competed in 2011, have finished fifth at each of the last three RMAC Championships. There best ever finishes were in 2014 and 2015, when they took fourth.
On an individual scale, the Maverick women have had 17 total All-RMAC performers since 1991, including
Kira MacGill, who was CMU's first female all-conference performer in four years, when she earned the first of three successive second team honors in 2020. Alexia Chapman was CMU's last first team selection in 2016.
MacGill is redshirting this season.
The Maverick men have earned 16 combined All-RMAC honors since 2014. Seven of those honors have come in the last three years alone.
Up Next
The Mavericks will continue the championship portion of their season in two weeks, competing at the NCAA Division II South Central Regional Championships in Lubbock, Texas on Nov. 4.
