GRAND JUNCTION, Colo. – After a season-opening split against two Texas schools in Salt Lake City, the Colorado Mesa men's soccer team will play NCAA games in front of a home crowd for the first time in 2023 as part of the Colorado Mesa Men's Soccer Showcase on Thursday and Saturday this weekend at Community Hospital Unity Field.

The Mavericks will be in action at 7 p.m. on both days, facing No. 22 Northwest Nazarene, who reached the quarterfinals of the NCAA Tournament last season, on Thursday and Eastern New Mexico on Saturday. Westminster's men's team will play a pair of neutral site games at the CHUF as well, with the Griffins battling ENMU at 4 p.m. on Thursday and NNU at 4 p.m. on Saturday.

Looking Back
Colorado Mesa opened the season 1-1, with both games being decided by a single goal. Against Texas A&M International, the Mavs raced out to a 3-0 lead with goals from Dimitrios Leonoglou, Fernando Morales and Leo Mireles. The Dustdevils made things interesting late by scoring twice in the game's final half-hour, but the Mavericks held on to win, 3-2.

Facing No. 18 Midwestern State, the Mavericks battled to a scoreless draw through most of the game before a late 88^th-minute penalty kick goal by All-American forward Mere Escobar delivered a 1-0 victory for the Mustangs.

RECAPS: Texas A&M International | Midwestern State

In an interesting twist, the Mavericks played these same two schools to open the 2022 season and had the same results, but opposite scores. In 2022, CMU came up short in a 3-2 loss to Midwestern State, then rebounded to beat TAMIU by a 1-0 margin.

Strong Starters
This time last season, Manuel Ponce Casas was making a name for himself by lighting up the scoresheet on a game-by-game basis. Then a true freshman, Ponce Casas scored in each of his first successive five college matches on his way to leading the team with seven goals scored on the season.

Last weekend, Ponce Casas made waves with his playmaking ability. The forward recorded two assists in the season-opening win over TAMIU, flicking a throw-in onto the head of Dimitrios Leonoglou less than two minutes into the season and making a centering pass from the right wing to Leo Mireles, who fired home CMU's third. Thursday was Ponce Casas's second two-assist game in his career, with the other coming against Montana State Billings last September 8, a game in which he also found the net.

Speaking of Leonoglou, the Western Texas College transfer made quite the impression in his Maverick debut, playing the full 90 minutes at center back and using his 6-foot-2 height to nod home a header in the box for his first CMU goal just 1:34 into the game. Leonoglou figures to be a stalwart at center back for the Mavs, starting one game alongside Felipe Busellini and one game alongside freshman Dylan Hobson as the Mavs move forward after losing both of last year's center backs to graduation.  

Midfielder John Roberts also hit the ground running, cracking the starting lineup on Thursday after missing the entire 2022 season due to injury.

Goalkeeper Diego Chavez was in top form throughout the season's first week, making a career-high six saves against Midwestern State. While Chavez allowed three goals, two of the three were from the penalty spot. In open play through the first two matches, Chavez has made nine saves and conceded just once.

Friend To Foe
Eastern New Mexico's visit to Grand Junction this weekend will mark the first time that CMU head coach Jon Fridal will oppose the program he coached from 2018-2020. Fridal accumulated a 20-13-3 overall record in two seasons at ENMU and is the school's all-time leader in wins.

Under Fridal, the Greyhounds had an undefeated nonconference schedule in 2019, finishing 12-5-1 overall and 4-5-1 in the Lone Star Conference. The 12 wins mark the only double-digit win total in the history of the program. However, the COVID-19 pandemic led to the cancelation of the 2020 season and Fridal departed for the Colorado Mesa job. Eastern New Mexico eventually discontinued their men's soccer program, but reinstated it for 2022.

In the Polls
Colorado Mesa was picked to finish fourth in the preseason Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference Coaches Poll, garnering 64 total points.

CSU Pueblo finished atop the poll with 97 points and seven of 11 first-place votes. Colorado School of Mines received 86 points and two first-place votes after winning the RMAC regular season and tournament titles last year, with UCCS just behind with 83 points and one first-place vote. Regis garnered the final first-place vote, but still finished just behind the Mavericks in fifth with 62 total points.

CSU Pueblo leads the way among RMAC schools with a No. 12 national ranking while UCCS is ranked No. 20. Colorado School of Mines is receiving votes. Midwestern State, who the Mavericks played last week, is up to No. 7 in the polls.

About Northwest Nazarene
Northwest Nazarene, located in Nampa, Idaho, is back for more in 2023 after a storybook season in 2022. The Nighthawks were picked fourth in last season's Great Northwest Athletic Conference (GNAC) preseason poll but ended up with a 15-4-3 record.

The Nighthawks wound up finishing first in the conference and going on a dramatic run all the way to the Elite Eight of the NCAA Tournament by winning three one-goal matches, including a penalty-kick shootout win over West Texas A&M and a second-round win over then-defending national champions Cal State LA. Northwest Nazarene's run came to an end in the national quarterfinals at the hands of RMAC school CSU Pueblo. Despite the postseason success and a No. 6 preseason national ranking, the GNAC Coaches projected NNU to come back down to earth, as the Nighthawks only ranked third in the 2023 preseason poll.

The Nighthawks are off to a 1-0-1 start this season after taking a two-game road trip to Hawaii. They opened the season with a 1-1 draw against Hawaii Pacific before beating Chaminade 3-1. Freshman forward Jim Wagenaar, a native of the Netherlands, had a hand in all three goals against Chaminade with two goals and an assist in his second college match.

Senior Sawyer Price is a returning starter from the Elite Eight team and made seven saves in the team's opening two matches. The Nighthawks also return their third-leading goalscorer in Jimmy Koufidakis (five goals, one assist) and last season's assist leader in Jonathan Cardona (10 assists in 2022).

Northwest Nazarene has a new coach this season after John Powell, the architect of last year's Elite Eight run, left for his alma mater Stanislaus State. The new man in charge is James Williamson, who has history at NNU after serving as an assistant coach on the women's team in 2017-18. Most recently, Williamson was a men's assistant coach at NCAA Division I Gonzaga University.

The Mavericks have won all four meetings against NNU but did not play the Nighthawks last season during their breakthrough campaign. The Mavs are 1-0 against NNU in the Jon Fridal era, winning 2-1 thanks to a game-winner by CMU's David Peters with just 28 seconds left in the match. Colorado Mesa also won during the 2013, 2018 and 2019 seasons.

About Eastern New Mexico
Eastern New Mexico was picked to finish 10^th and last in the Lone Star Conference's preseason poll, but the past few years for the Greyhounds have been among the brightest in the history of the program.

The Greyhounds finished 5-8-2 overall last season, going 2-6-1 in the Lone Star Conference. That was year one of the second era of the ENMU program, which was discontinued for the 2021-22 campaign before being reinstated. The discontinuation came at a bad time for ENMU, which achieved a school-record 12 wins during the 2019 season before COVID-19 canceled the 2020 season.  

Current Mavs head coach Jon Fridal was in charge for two seasons at ENMU and achieved the best and third-best records in program history. Brandon Misuraca came on board in 2022 and is in his second season as the Eastern New Mexico coach.

Eastern New Mexico will take on Westminster and CMU this weekend after facing two other RMAC programs to begin their 2023 season, as ENMU beat Adams State 4-1 before falling 3-1 to Fort Lewis. Forward Giani Mascarel, a transfer from Northeastern State, leads the attack with two goals scored against ASU while sophomore defender Felix Drizinsky, who played every minute for ENMU last season, added a goal and an assist.

Colorado Mesa has an all-time record of 1-2-1 against Eastern New Mexico. The Greyhounds defeated CMU 5-1 in 2008, although that win was later vacated due to NCAA violations at ENMU. The teams then played to a scoreless draw in 2016 before Mesa pulled out a 2-1 win in overtime in 2018. The Greyhounds were victorious in the last meeting between the two schools, winning 2-0 in September 2019 in Grand Junction. For the 2018 and 2019 meetings, current Mavs coach Jon Fridal was on the other sideline coaching the Greyhounds.

Coach's Corner
Mavericks head coach Jon Fridal begins his fourth season at Colorado Mesa in 2023. He has already earned conference and regional coaching honors and taken the Mavericks to national success.

In his first year, played in spring 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Mavs went 6-1-1, including 5-0-1 in conference play, as Fridal took home RMAC Coach of the Year honors, becoming the second coach in the history of the program to do so.

In his first full campaign in the fall of 2021, Fridal led the Mavericks to a 16-4-2 record, a second-place RMAC regular-season finish, an RMAC Tournament title and a win in the NCAA Tournament. That led to a top-10 national preseason ranking for the team entering the 2022 season.

Along with assistant coach Brandon Bautista, Fridal was honored as the United Soccer Coaches South Central Regional Staff of the Year in 2021.