ALAMOSA, Colo. – Colorado Mesa men's lacrosse took another step towards securing the No. 1 seed in the RMAC standings by defeating Adams State 17-8 on the road Friday afternoon.

JJ Brummett had five goals while James Steinke had a hat trick for the Mavericks, including the first two goals of the game, as CMU raced out to leads of 5-0, 8-1 and 13-2 before the home team's offense caught fire in the third quarter. Philip Petersen scored twice and added four assists for a six-point game for CMU.

The win improves Colorado Mesa's record to 9-4 overall and 6-1 in the RMAC with one regular season game remaining. The Mavs are tied at the top of the standings with Westminster, who won Friday at CSU Pueblo, but CMU will move ahead for tournament seeding on conference goal differential tiebreakers as long as they win Sunday's game against the ThunderWolves by six goals or more.

The Mavericks outshot Adams State 52-30, won 20 out of 29 faceoffs and doubled up the Grizzlies 32-16 on ground balls. Colorado Mesa went 20-for-21 on clear attempts while holding Adams State to 15-for-20 and forcing 19 Grizzly turnovers. Dylan Checketts went 8-for-10 from the faceoff circle and led the Mavericks with six ground balls, while Cam Casados also went 8-for-10 on faceoffs and tallied four ground balls alongside James Steinke.

Steinke, in his return to the lineup after missing five games due to injury, scored twice in a 30-second span to open the scoring. Steinke received a pass from Philip Petersen to get the Mavs on the board six minutes into the contest, then flicked the ball behind his head off a dish from Micah Payton to beat ASU goalie Ryan Berger from close range to put CMU up 2-0.

Goals from JJ Brummett, Alex Blatt and Petersen gave CMU an early 5-0 lead before Adams scored its first goal with 56 seconds remaining in the first quarter. The Mavericks didn't skip a beat in the second period, with Brummett scoring 18 seconds in with the first of his three second-quarter goals as the Mavericks built a 9-2 halftime lead.

Adams State went on a second-half run, finding the net five times in a seven-and-a-half minute to turn a 13-2 CMU cushion into a 14-7 game. The Mavericks found an answer with goals from Blatt, Levi McCoy and Brummett to run the Maverick lead back up to 10 goals before a late ASU tally provided the final margin.