GRAND JUNCTION, Colo. – Colorado Mesa men's lacrosse put the CSU Pueblo cage under assault from start to finish in a completely comfortable 22-3 victory that secured CMU's fourth outright RMAC regular season title.

The win moves the No. 12-ranked Mavericks to 5-0 in the RMAC, cementing a two-game lead over Westminster with one RMAC game left to play. The Mavericks are 13-2 overall. Colorado Mesa has now won at least a share of six of the seven contested RMAC regular season championships, winning four outright and sharing two with Westminster.

The Mavericks took 86 shots as a team, the second-highest single-game total in program history. CMU also scooped 64 ground balls, the fourth-highest number in a single game. CMU put a whopping 54 shots on net to drown out an exceptional performance by CSU Pueblo goalie Ethan Ferrie, who made 29 saves in just 52 minutes of work before the ThunderWolves rotated in a pair of reserve netminders. CSUP finished with 32 saves as a team.

Colorado Mesa owned the face-off circle, winning 24 of 27 with four separate Maverick face-off takers ending the match with above an 80 percent success rate. Dylan Checketts won 8 of 9, Mike Edwards won 6 of 7 and freshman Kanyan Rhodes went a perfect 5-for-5 in his battles. Redshirt junior Colin Seedorf, playing in his first match of the season, didn't show any signs of rust as he finished 5-for-6 in the circle with three ground balls.

The Mavericks had large margins in nearly every measurable statistic, outshooting CSUP 86-12 and scooping 64 ground balls compared to 16 for the visitors. The ThunderWolves committed 26 turnovers compared to 12 by CMU, and the Mavs went 27-for-28 on clears while the ThunderWolves only managed to go 18-for-32.

JJ Brummett and James Steinke led the way with hat tricks during a balanced offensive night for CMU when 13 different players scored and seven players had multiple goals. Drew Eickelman added two goals and three assists for a five-point night, AJ Switzer scored twice and dished out two assists to extend his single-season record to 35 on the year and Dalton Goodale found the net twice for his first two goals of the season.

Mac Bayless got the start in the cage and made three saves while allowing two goals in the game's opening 30 minutes. Calvin Doucette played the third quarter, conceding once, while Luke Parrish made two saves in a scoreless fourth quarter.

The Maverick offense only improved as it went along. A slow-moving first quarter meant the Mavericks only had two goals in the opening 12 minutes of game time, and when CSUP's Johnny Cole quickly answered CMU's third from JJ Brummett with 18 seconds to play in the first quarter, CMU only led by two goals, 3-1.

But defender Trey Corkin III's fourth goal of the season quite literally beat the buzzer to put the Mavs up by three with zeros on the clock, and the offense continued to build momentum from there. The Mavericks led 9-2 at halftime after Steinke scored twice in the second quarter and Switzer buried his 27^th goal from Sergio Pelayo with just under a minute left.

The second half didn't have an ideal start as Pueblo drove down the field to score just 11 seconds into the start of the second half to make the score 9-3, but the ThunderWolves would fail to light the lamp after that with the Mavericks ripping off a 13-0 run over the game's final 29:30.

The Brummett's owned the third period, with three unanswered goals consisting of JJ Brummett scoring, Jed Brummett scoring and JJ assisting another Jed goal within a three-minute span that made it 15-3. Reserves mostly played the fourth quarter, and along with Goodale scoring twice, Ethan Points (sixth of the season), Erich Petersen (second) and Micah Payton (fourth) got much-earned additions to their goal tallies.

While the Mavericks have clinched the RMAC title and the No. 1 seed in next weekend's RMAC Tournament, Sunday's game against Adams State is vitally important for CMU to continue to flash its resume towards the NCAA national ranking committee, as the Mavericks continue to live on the bubble of tournament contention in the No. 6 and final South Region seed and the No. 12 team in the country in a sport where 12 teams make the NCAA Tournament.

Sunday will also be senior day, where 12 rostered players – Alex Blatt, Jed Brummett, Vinny Curci, Drew Eickelman, Jake Eickelman, Riley Fisher, Sal Iaria, Brayden Lowe, Hayden Scherr, Colin Seedorf, James Steinke and AJ Switzer – will be honored pregame. The game is scheduled to start at noon, with warm-ups wrapping up early for the senior day festivities.