GRAND JUNCTION, Colo.— After a record-setting weekend of power, the Colorado Mesa University Maverick softball team will return home to begin a season-long 8-game homestand, beginning Thursday against New Mexico Highlands University.
Thursday's twilight doubleheader will begin at 4 p.m., a change from the original schedule. The two teams will also square off in a Good Friday doubleheader at 11 a.m. before taking Easter Weekend off.
The Mavericks will come into the series as winners of 13 straight games and are 23-7 overall. They are also 21-3 in Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference play, tied for second with national poll No 10. Colorado Christian in the conference standings. Both CMU and the Cougars trail MSU Denver, receiving votes in the national poll, by a game in the conference standings.
Meanwhile, NMHU will come into the series with a 11-16 overall record and are 7-15 in RMAC play. The Cowgirls are in ninth place in the RMAC standings but sit just two games behind Black Hills State, which currently holds down the sixth and final RMAC Tournament qualification spot at 9-13.
Tickets can be purchased for both doubleheaders at
www.cmumavericks.com/tv and all four games will be streamed on the
RMAC Network. Live statistics
can also be accessed through this link.
Last Time Out
The Mavericks are coming off an impressive sweep of Black Hills State University. The Mavs won via the mercy-rule in all four games played last Friday and Saturday at Riverdale Ridge High School in Thorton, Colorado due to weather conditions and forecasts in South Dakota.
The Mavericks outscored the Yellow Jackets by a 59-11 margin throughout the series and hit an astounding 26 home runs off the bats of ten different Maverick players, a new program record for the most home runs in a single series. CMU also hit 11 doubles and had a team batting average of .465 and a team slugging percentage of 1.165 throughout the weekend.
Defensively, all four Maverick pitchers worked as
Preslee Christensen went 2-0 with a 3.50 ERA. She tossed a 2-hit shutout and struck out a career-high 13 Yellow Jackets in the first game of the series, decided by a 14-0 count in five innings.
Hannah Sattler also had a fine weekend posting a 1-0 record and 0.88 ERA in two appearances totaling eight innings. She also had seven strikeouts.
Complete recaps of both doubleheaders can be found at the links below and some more detailed analysis of the various performances will be included in the notes below.
Player of the Week
Myah Arrieta matched a school-record by hitting three home runs in a single game during Saturday's 19-4, 5-inning victory over the Yellow Jackets in Game 3 of the series and hit eight in the series as a whole.
She became the fifth Maverick to ever hit three home runs in a single game joining program standouts Kelly Adams, Brooke Doumer,
Aislyn Sharp and
Rylee Crouch in that elite club. Arrieta also was named as both the
Louisville Slugger/NFCA NCAA Division II National and Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference Player of the Week. The national award is the second of the junior shortstop's career after earning the first on Mar. 7, 2023 and puts her alongside AnnMarie Torres, the 2019 RMAC Player of the Year, to ever earn the award twice.
As a program, CMU players have now taken the national honor six times with program legend Brooke Hodgson (2018) and current Maverick fifth-year senior
Iliana Mendoza having (Mar. 21, 2023) won the other two.
Power Numbers
The Mavs hit 26 home runs in the series with BHSU and put up their three best home-run hitting games in program history over the same weekend. The Mavs hit eight home runs in the series opener on Friday and then hit seven in each of the next two games before finishing the weekend off with a 4-home game.
The Mavs' former single-game record for home runs was six, a feat they had done eight times, most recently in 2019.
The eight home runs in the series-opener allowed the Mavs to match a RMAC record, first set in 2005.
As mentioned earlier, ten different Mavericks hit home runs, a group led by
Myah Arrieta's eight. She is now tied for the RMAC lead in home runs with teammate
Miranda Pruitt, who hit three against the Yellow Jackets, including a grand slam.
Iliana Mendoz and
Jackie Oster also hit three home runs in the series while Makayla Westmorland,
Chloe Valdez and
Allison Lindsay all had two. Lindsay's were the first of her collegiate career and made her the 11
th different Maverick to hit a home run this season.
Ally Distler,
Ava Fugate and
Cailynn Parsons all had one home run during the series as well.
Slugging to the Top
As a team, the Mavericks recorded a 1.165 slugging percentage in the weekend series with BHSU, which raised their season-long percentage to .686, a mark that leads the NCAA Division II statistics by 52 points over West Florida as of Wednesday afternoon's national statistical report. Colorado Christian is ranked fourth in the nation and second in the RMAC at .615.
The Mavs are also now ranked second in the nation for both total home runs (69) and home runs per game (2.30), trailing only Valdosta State's total of 77 and per game average of 2.33.
CMU was ranked fifth in the country with 43 home runs prior to the last series and shot up the home run tote board.
On an individual basis, Arrieta now leads the RMAC and ranks fourth nationally with her season long slugging percentage of 1.053. She and Pruitt are tied for fourth in the country in total home runs. Pruitt is second in home runs per game at 0.52 just ahead of Arrieta, who has a 0.50 per game average having played in all 30 of the Mavs' games this year. Pruitt was rested in one and thus has the slightly higher per game average.
Brothers & Sisters
The Colorado Mesa baseball and softball teams had an offensive explosion for the ages this past weekend. While the softball team was in the Denver, area the baseball team swept Colorado Christian at home.
The Mavericks' two diamond squads combined to hit .449 with 26 doubles, 43 home runs, 122 runs scored and a 1.078 slugging percentage. The baseball team tied a single game record by blasting eight home runs in one of their four wins while the softball team tied an RMAC record with their aforementioned eight home runs in a win over the Yellowjackets.
Home Sweet Home
The CMU Softball Stadium has proven to be a fortress for the Mavericks and a house of horrors for opposing squads in recent years, which was again the case early this season.
The Mavs have swept both of their home series this year and have now won 180 of their 212 home games over the last nearly ten seasons, good for a winning percentage of .849.
They were a perfect 24-0 at home back in 2017 and have recorded 20 or more home wins in six of their last seven full seasons, a streak that was snapped last year, when CMU went 15-9 at home.
Here's a look at the Mavericks' home-field records over the last ten seasons.
2015- 18-2
2016- 17-5
2017- 24-0
2018- 22-5
2019-24-4
2020*- 6-2
2021-23-2
2022- 23-3
2023- 15-9
2004 (current)- 8-0
The Boss
Head Coach
Mercedes Bohte, a member of the Maverick coaching staff since 2013, is now in her fourth season in charge of the program and currently has a 139-44 (.759) career record and winning percentage as the leader of the program. The Mavericks have also won 83.4 percent (116-23) of their 139 RMAC games under her tutelage.
She picked up her 100
th RMAC win in the first game of the series sweep against Mines on Feb. 23.
In 2021, while serving as the program's interim coach, Bohte, led the Mavericks to a 39-5 overall record, good for an .886 winning percentage, which was the best in Division II softball. She was named as the RMAC Coach of the Year for her efforts and then had the interim tag removed over the summer of 2021. Under her direction in that year, the Mavericks went 34-2 in RMAC play to win the RMAC's regular season title. They also claimed the RMAC Tournament crown and advanced to the NCAA Division II Tournament.
In 2022, the Mavericks were just as successful going 45-9 overall and 35-3 in RMAC play, clinching a sixth consecutive RMAC Regular Season title on the final day of the regular season.
They then went 32-23 overall and 26-15 in RMAC play last year while advancing to the RMAC Tournament final for the second time in Bohte's three years.
Maverick players have combined to win 22 All-RMAC honors in Bohte's three previous years, including 12 first team picks. Seven of those honors came in 2023.
She has also guided players to a combined five all-America honors from the NFCA and D2CCA. The Mavs have combined to garner 19 all-region honors from those two organizations in her three previous years.
Bohte's 2022 team had eight overall All-RMAC picks, including six first team selections. The Mavericks also laid claim to the RMAC Player of the Year in
Ashley Bradford, later named as a Second Team D2CCA All-American, and the RMAC Pitcher of the Year in repeat selection Paige Adair.
The Mavs also won the NCAA statistical titles for home runs (100) and slugging percentage (.646) and set a school-record for team ERA (1.63), the sixth best mark in all of Division II softball.
In Bohte's first season (2021), the Mavericks also had seven overall and four First Team All-RMAC honorees. The Mavs led the country in scoring (8.95 runs per game) that year and had a pair of consensus first team all-Americans in Ellie Smith and Lauren Wedman.
In her time on the coaching staff, which goes back to 2013, the Mavericks have won seven RMAC Championships and have qualified for five NCAA Tournaments. As the team's pitching coach, her staffs have led the RMAC in ERA during seven straight seasons from 2016-22, including in 2021 and 2022, when she guided 2-time RMAC Pitcher of the Year
Paige Adair, who set a new single-season record for individual ERA (1.30) in 2023. Adair, now the head coach at Fort Lewis, also became the first Maverick to earn D2CCA South Central Region Pitcher of the Year plaudits.
In her time as the Mavs' pitching coach, Bohte has guided pitchers to 15 All-RMAC and 11 all-region honors, a group led by Adair, McKenzie Surface, the RMAC's all-time winningest pitcher and 2017 RMAC Co-Pitcher of the Year, 2019 RMAC Pitcher of the Year Kimbri Herring.
About the Cowgirls
The Cowgirls will enter the weekend with an 11-16 record and are 7-15 in RMAC play after winning the last three games of last weekend's 4-game set at Adams State.
Karla Banegas has been impressive for the Cowgirls, posting a .468 batting average and .726 slugging percentage. She ranks fourth in the conference for batting average and fifth for slugging and is second on the team in RBIs with 18. Arianna Ramirez leads the team in power numbers with four home runs, nine doubles and 21 RBIs and is third amongst regular starters with a .325 batting average.
Jazmyn Griego is also hitting .328 with seven doubles while Carlee Gonzales has a .409 batting average in 44 at bats and 16 appearances.
Maya Milano has a winning 6-5 record and 4.90 ERA while splitting a majority of the pitching starts with Arianna Ramirez who is 3-9 with a 6.49 ERA. Milano has made 16 appearances and ten starts, seven of which she has completed. Ramirez has eight complete games in her 12 starts. They have pitched a combined 138 innings and have three shutouts combined.
Banegas has also made five starts and nine appearances in the circle, compiling a 2-2 record and 6.93 ERA.
Series History
The Mavericks have defeated the Cowgirls 28 straight times and lead the Division II era series by a commanding 89-23-1 margin. NMHU's last win over the Mavs came on Mar. 14, 2015 in Grand Junction, where CMU is 33-8 against the Cowgirls. The Mavs still won that year's season series and are 36-1-1 in the last 38 match-ups, including a 2013 tie due to weather issues. CMU split the 2008 and 2012 series with NMHU but has won every other year's season series since 2006 when NMHU won both RMAC Tournament games between the teams after the two teams split a 4-game regular series set.
Up Next
The Mavericks will remain at home next weekend when they face the Chadron State College Eagles in a 4-game set. Doubleheaders will begin next Saturday (Apr. 6) at Noon and Sunday (Apr. 7) at 11 a.m. The Eagles are currently 5-25 overall and 5-15 in RMAC playing heading into a home series with national poll No. 10 Colorado Christian.
