PUEBLO, Colo.— The Colorado Mesa University men's cross country team had their best day of the season to claim their third top-10 regional championship finish in the last five years on Saturday here at Walking Stick Golf Course.
 
The Mavericks finished ninth at the NCAA Division II South Central Regional Championships with 325 points, defeating three teams that had finished ahead of them at the Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference Championships just a fortnight ago in Colorado Springs.
 
CMU finished 11^th at the conference meet.
 
The Mavs also finished in the top half of the field for the first time of the campaign on Saturday.
 
As was at the case at the conference meet, the youth of the squad led the way as freshman Colton White took his turn in leading the Mavs, placing 46^th with a 10,000-meter time of 31 minutes, 59.3 seconds in his first attempt at that distance.
 
Fellow freshman Clayton Wilson was just 8.3 seconds behind, placing 52^nd in 32:07.6 while redshirt junior Chase Brown placed 60^th in a career-best time of 31:19.1 after placing 62^nd at the conference meet.  Brown was the only Maverick with previous regional championship and 10K experience.
 
Redshirt sophomore Owen Frank was the Mavs' fourth man on Saturday, crossing the finish line in 75^th place and with a time of 32:52.0.
 
Freshman Kael Jex rounded out the Mavs' team score, finishing 92^nd in 32:23.7.
 
Alex Spink, who finished 108^th in 33:53.5, and freshman Dominick Muller, who placed 124^th in 34:26.5, were also part of the Maverick lineup and made their regional championship and 10K debuts.  Muller was the Mavs' top performer at the conference meet.
 
Second-ranked Adams State, one of seven teams from the region in the latest U.S. Track & Field and Cross Country Coaches Association's NCAA Division II Coaches Poll, claimed the regional team victory with 50 points while third-ranked Colorado School of Mines took second with 62.  No. 8 Western Colorado also earned automatic qualification for the Nov. 22 NCAA Division II National Championships in Kenosha, Wisconsin, with a third place tally of 75 points.
 
No. 6 Colorado Christian (113), No. 12 West Texas A&M (148) and No. 15 UCCS (159) also appear good to earn some of the ten available at-large selections to the national championships.  If they do, unranked MSU Denver (239) and No. 24 Fort Lewis (253) would be next in line for a potential at-large berths and ahead of the Mavericks.
 
New Mexico Highlands' Weldon Chebon and Texas A&M-International's Ian Rono are also guaranteed of individual selection after book-ending a pair of Adams State runners in the top four.  Chebon claimed the individual title by 8.6 seconds in 29:44.9 as Adams State's Kidus Begashaw took second in 29:53.5 after also taking second on the RMAC Championships behind Mines' Paul Knight, who did not run in the regional.
 
Adams State's Julian Campos finished third on Saturday in 30:06.4 while Rono was fourth in 30:13.8.
 
West Texas A&M's Adrian Legarreta is also assured of NCAA qualification even if his Buff squad is not chose as a team after finishing fifth in 30:16.9.
 
The NCAA selections will be announced on NCAA.com no later than 3 p.m. MST on Monday afternoon.
 
The Maverick women and redshirt senior Megan Hodges have strong chances to be selected as Hodges' 11^th place finish led the Mavs to a seventh place team finish.