GRAND JUNCTION, Colo. – Jed Brummett had four goals and six points, tying the Colorado Mesa single-season goalscoring record, as Colorado Mesa moved into the finals of the RMAC Tournament with a 23-3 victory over Adams State.
Brummett's four goals gave him 58 on the season, tying Steve Brandenburg's 2017 total for the most in a single season in a CMU uniform. He will have an opportunity to break the record in Friday's RMAC Tournament championship game and in the NCAA Tournament if the Mavericks qualify. Brummett also tied a career high with two assists.
AJ Switzer and
Connor Jensen also recorded hat tricks in the balanced effort for CMU, which kept alive its streak of advancing to every RMAC Tournament championship game. Switzer's three goals gave him 40 on the season. He becomes the fifth CMU player ever to break the 40-goal barrier in a single-season and Switzer and Brummett become the first pair of teammates to do so in the same year. Switzer needs four points in Friday's game to break the program single-season record of 79, also held by Brandenburg.
Drew Eickelman had three assists to bring his total on the season to 30 and become the second player this year to break the school's previous single-season record of 28 assists (Switzer has the new record with 36 assists and counting).
Adams State scored the first goal of the game, with Travis Brave Heart scoring off a slick assist from Matthew Lash 2:18 into the game. The Mavericks responded 16 seconds later, with Switzer firing a laser into the net from
Jed Brummett. From there, the Mavs were rolling.
Jed Brummett had a hat trick before 10 minutes of game time had passed and Switzer got his hat trick a minute and a half later.
Sal Iaria had two goals, one from a man up, and then assisted
Hunter Holcomb for another score.
JJ Brummett and
Philip Petersen both scored within the final 30 seconds of the period to give CMU a 13-2 lead after one quarter.
The second quarter saw three goals plus an assist from Jensen, a freshman from Brentwood, Tennessee. Other highlights included
James Steinke scoring his 30
th goal of the season,
Levi McCoy scoring his 10
th of the season and freshman
Kanyan Rhodes scoring the first goal of his career directly from a faceoff which he won. The Mavericks led 21-2 at halftime.
Colorado Mesa played the second half simply content to run out the clock, scoring solitary goals from
Erich Petersen in the third quarter and
Ethan Points in the fourth. Colorado Mesa outshot ASU 48-18, had 53 ground balls to the Grizzlies' 14 and won 25 out of 30 faceoffs.
The Mavericks will take on the winner of Thursday's second semifinal between Westminster and CSU Pueblo on Friday at 7:30 p.m. at Community Hospital Unity Field.