GRAND JUNCTION, Colo.— The No. 17 Colorado Mesa University men's lacrosse team will head to San Rafael, California to begin the 2025 season while renewing old and new rivalries against the two newest Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference foes.
CMU, the defending conference tournament and co-regular season champions will begin the campaign with a Saturday afternoon contest against Concordia University Irvine, the team the Mavs beat in overtime to win the 2024 RMAC Tournament title.
They will then face the Dominican University Penguins, the newest RMAC members, on Monday afternoon.
Both games will be played on the Penguins' Kennelly Field and can be seen on a
pay-per-view basis through the PacWest Network.
Live stats can also be accessed here.
The opening faceoffs will be at 3 p.m. PST (4 p.m. Mountain) on Saturday and 1 p.m. PST (2 p.m. Mountain) on Monday.
Young & Old Rivalries Renewed
CUI joined the RMAC in 2024 in their first year at the varsity level after running a successful MCLA club level program out of Irvine, California. The Golden Eagles went 7-8 overall and 4-4 in their debut season at the NCAA Division II level, finishing third out of five teams in the RMAC standings.
However, they peaked at the right time winning their final two regular season games before stunning No. 2 seed and co-regular season champion Westminster by a 15-9 score in the RMAC Tournament semifinals, played at CMU's Community Hospital Unity Field. The Golden Eagles then gave the Mavs all they could handle in the tournament championship, before CMU prevailed 13-12.
The Mavs won all three match-ups with the Golden Eagles last year winning 19-9 in Irvine, California on Feb. 25 before defeating the Golden Eagles, 17-4 on Apr. 5in the second regular season match-up.
On Monday, the Mavs will once again renew their rivalry with the Dominican Penguins, who resumed varsity and NCAA Division II play in 2024 after a multiple-year span in the MCLA ranks.
CMU defeated the Penguins by a 27-5 margin on Feb. 23, 2024 in what was CMU's season opener. That game was played at CUI in Irvine.
However, CMU and Dominican also had quite an intense rivalry in the early days of the Mav program as both teams competed in the Western Intercollegiate Lacrosse Association from 2011-14 before the RMAC started sponsorship of the sport for the 2016 season.
In the WILA era, the teams split eight match-ups 4-4 and four of the eight were decided by a single goal. Many of those games decided the WILA titles, which CMU won in 2012 and 2015. Dominican won the WILA crowns in 2013 and 2014 before dropping out of the league and NCAA Division II lacrosse prior to the 2015 campaign.
Related Item: WILA Wikipedia Page
Dominican officially went 2-10 overall in their first year back at the varsity level last season and also had two other wins coming over MCLA level foes last seaason. The Penguins played as independents last year but played seven of their other 12 games against current RMAC members, going 2-5 in those games and 0-5 against other Division II foes.
The Penguins joined the conference as affiliate members for this 2025 season.
A Peach-ey route to the NCAA Tournament
The RMAC and Peach Belt Conference, which has four men's lacrosse-playing members in three southern states, formed a partnership for this 2025 season in order to take advantage of the new NCAA Division II Tournament Automatic Qualification spot policies. Because both conferences were slightly under the requirement of having six member teams to earn an AQ spot, they joined forces.
Each conference will continue to run their respective leagues in tandem and under the official auspices of the PBC. The five RMAC teams will play in the Rocky Mountain Division of the Peach Belt Conference and the RMAC will still run a regular season and post-season "Rocky Mountain Division" tournament. The four PBC members will do the same in the "Peach Belt Division".
The two divisional tournament winners will then then square off on Friday, May 2 at the Peach Belt Champion in the Automatic Qualification game, with the winner earning an automatic spot in the now expanded 16-team NCAA Division II Tournament, which begins just five days later. Other PBC and RMAC members will also be eligible to potentially receive at-large spots from the NCAA Division II South Region, as has been the case. However, that has been a tough road with the Mavs making their and the RMAC's lone appearance in 2018.
In 2025, the region will send eight teams, up from six and four teams in past years, to the NCAA Tournament, including the AQ's from five conferences. Forty-three teams are in those five leagues. The North region, which has 36 teams from four leagues plus one independent institution will also have eight qualifiers.
Northwest Nazarene of Nampa, Idaho will also join the RMAC as an associate member in 2026 moving up from the club ranks.
CSU Pueblo dropped their varsity program after the 2024 campaign.
The last of the Brummett Bros
The name Brummett has become synonymous with Colorado Mesa University lacrosse as at least one of three Brummett brothers has been on the CMU roster for the last six years, a trend that will end in 2025 with
JJ Brummett entering his senior campaign.
The Glen Rock, Pennsylvania family has contributed massively to the Mavericks' success in recent times with Jed Brummett setting a CMU single-season record of 63 goals as a senior in 2023 while finishing third in CMU program history with 123 career tallies during his 2020-23 career.
In 2024,
JJ Brummett took the mantle of CMU leadership and scored 54 goals, the third highest single-season total in program history. He will enter his senior campaign with 98 career markers, sixth most in program history. Brummett will also enter the season as a Second Team Preseason All-American by
USA Lacrosse Magazine and as one of the Mavs' four returning All-RMAC selections. ' He earned honorable mention all-America honors from the publication last season.
As a freshman in 2022, JJ had the opportunity to play alongside both of his older brothers as Jed was a junior while Jake spent his fifth season of eligibility at CMU as a face-off man for the Mavs after a strong 4-year career at NCAA Division III Hampden-Sydney.
Brotherly Love
Although only one Brummett brother will be on the CMU team in 2025, the Mavericks are continuing their tradition of having brothers on the team in a big way once again with four sets of brothers once again playing together on the Maverick roster this season.
This year's sets of brothers include Beau and
Deuce Kirschke, Erich and
Julius Petersen, Dillon and
Ryan Pless as well as Carson and
Ethan Points.
CMU's Head Coach
Troy Moyer also hails from the Philadelphia area, affectionately known as the City of Brotherly Love, and is a huge Philadelphia sports fan and certainly was pleased with the results of Sunday's Super Bowl.
In the Polls
The Mavericks were picked as the Co-No. 1 team in the RMAC's Preseason Coaches Poll, sharing the top spot with Westminster after the two teams shared the conference's regular season title in 2024.
Both the Mavs and Griffins scored 14 points in the poll, which had the five RMAC head coaches rank their opposition 1-4 without voting for their own squad. CMU and WU both received two first place votes.
Concordia University Irvine garnered the other first place vote and finished the poll in third place with 11 points ahead of conference newcomer Dominican (6) and Adams State (5).
Up a spot
Despite not playing yet, the Mavericks moved up
one spot to 17th in this week's United States Intercollegiate Lacrosse Association Poll, which was released on Monday. The Mavs, who garnered 69 points in this week's poll, had been tabbed 18
th in the preseason edition.
The Mavs are the only Peach Belt squad in the top 20 although Westminster from the Rocky Mountain Division and Lander from the Peach Belt Division are just outside the top 20 in the top two spots of the "also receiving votes" category.
Defending National Champion Adelphi continues to top the poll, picking up 18 of the 20 first place votes that were cast. Tampa is second in the poll and took the other two first place ballots. Limestone, Lenoir-Rhyne and Wingate round out an unchanged top five.
Two upcoming opponents in Florida Southern and Rockhurst and ranked 15
th and 17
th, respectively.
Players to Watch
In conjunction with the preseason coaches' poll, the RMAC also announced a Players to Watch list, made up of returning first and second team all-conference selections. Schools that did not have a returning all-conference selection were also allowed to name a single player to the list.
The Mavs return four of their ten returning first or second team all-conference selections in senior attackman
JJ Brummett, junior midfielders
Dillon Pless and
Deuce Kirschke as well senior defender
Caden Hathaway.
Pless was a First Team All-RMAC pick in 2024, when he scored 17 goals while adding five assists. Kirschke was also a first team pick at the short stick defensive midfielder position and claimed 26 groundballs and six caused turnovers while scoring five goals last year.
Hathaway was votes to the Second Team All-RMAC squad in 2024 after registering 28 groundballs and 12 caused turnovers. He was also named as the RMAC Co-Defender and Freshman of the Year in 2022.
The Bench Boss
Troy Moyer returns for his third season in charge of the Maverick program, promoted to the head coach role in the fall of 2022 after a brief stint as the interim head coach. Moyer took over for former CMU Head Coach Vince Smith, who left the position for other opportunities outside of coaching.
Moyer had been originally been hired as an assistant on Smith's staff for the 2018-19 season.
In his two seasons as a head coach, Moyer has guided the Mavericks to a combined 29-6 record, including a 13-1 mark in RMAC games and a perfect 12-0 record at home. The Mavs have won both the RMAC Regular Season and Tournament titles in both seasons with Moyer in charge.
In his overall time with the Mavericks, Moyer has helped the program win four RMAC regular season titles and three tournament crowns. The Mavs have gone a combined 69-20 in the six seasons with Moyer on the sidelines.
Former Maverick player
Blake Amiatu also returns for his second year as the Mavericks' assistant coach.
Time (Zone) Travelers
As in previous years and due to the challenges of sponsoring men's lacrosse in the Western half of the country, the Mavericks will spend much of their season on the road, playing just four of their 13 regular season games at home while playing at least two games in all four of the time zones in the continental U.S.
They will play their first seven away from home, including the season-opening neutral site encounter, visiting California, Missouri and Florida before taking on CUI in their home-opener on Mar. 28.
The Mavs will be at home for four of their final six regular season contests with short trips to Westminster (Apr. 6) and Adams State (Apr. 9) mixed in to the middle of that stretch.
The Rocky Mountain Division Tournament will be played on Apr. 24 and 26 at the highest seed. The winner will then play in the Peach Belt Automatic Qualification game on May 2.
To see the full schedule, click here.
Know Your Foes
Concordia University Irvine
The Golden Eagles return three All-RMAC selections from last year, including faceoff specialist Cade Poe, who won a league-best 65.3 percent of his faceoffs last season to ranks seventh in the national statistics. He also led the RMAC and ranked seventh nationally, scooping up nearly ten (9.93 groundballs per game).
Second Team All-RMAC goalie Daniel Yang and attack Chad McFadden also return. McFadden scored 35 goals and assisted on 17 others last year while Yang was second in the RMAC for both save percentage (.481) and goals against average (11.39) last season.
Head Coach Jesse Foss is in his seventh season with the Golden Eagles and led the team to a MCLA Division 1 National Championship in 2023 before their solid debut season at the NCAA level.
Dominican
After playing as independents last season, the Penguins hope to make RMAC noise this season and have tabbed Joshua Peavey as their Player to Watch. The graduate student won 50.5 percent of his faceoffs last season after transferring from Whittier. He also led Penguins with 64 ground balls last year.
Midfielder Jason Eide was second on the squad with 19 goals and 25 offensive points last year and returns for a graduate year.
Senior Nicholas Woodard led the Dominican defense with 31 caused turnovers last season.
Junior Tristan Hunter saw a majority of the time in net last season and returns after making 135 saves during the Penguins' 2-10 season, which saw them give up 207 goals.
Bobby Grove is the team's new head coach after spending the previous three seasons as the defensive coordinator.
Up Next
The Mavs will only have a brief respite before bussing out to the Kansas City, Missouri area for a pair of games at William Jewell and Rockhurst on Feb. 21 and 24, respectively.
They will then have nearly three weeks off before beginning a Spring Break trip to Florida, where they will play three games between Mar. 15-20.
