GRAND JUNCTION, Colo.— Up two spots to the 15
th in the latest national poll and off to a 2-0 overall start and in conference play after their trip to California, the Colorado Mesa University Maverick men's lacrosse team will make another long trip, bussing to the Kansas City area for a pair of non-conference match-ups.
The Mavericks will play at William Jewell College in the Kansas City suburb of Liberty, Missouri on Sunday afternoon at Noon (CST) before playing at Bourke Field in the city against Rockhurst University on Tuesday at the same time.
Those games were originally scheduled for Friday night and Monday but were pushed back due to recent winter storms in the area.
Both games will be streamed for free on the GLVC Sports Network and will have live statistics provided by the hosts. Both streams and live stat links can be accessed at the links above.
Last Times Out
The Mavericks opened their 2025 campaign in San Rafael, California, claiming a 13-8 win over Concordia University Irvine last Saturday (Feb. 15) before defeating Dominican University by a 16-5 margin on Monday (Feb. 17).
Connor Jensen, who redshirted in 2024, scored four goals in each game to lead the Maverick offensive attack.
Carson Points also added a hat trick in the in over CUI, which was a re-match of last year's Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference Tournament Championship game, which the Mavs won in overtime. His brother
Ethan Points also registered three assists in the victory.
Against Dominican,
Erich Petersen scored three goals in support of Jensen while
JJ Brummett tallied four points with two goals and a pair of assists.
Full recaps of both games can be found here:
Historic debut
Maverick goalie
Shaden Shields made 18 saves and a .692 save percentage in the season-opening win over CUI, the highest single-game total for a Maverick net-minder in seven years and the fifth highest in program history.
The 18 saves were also the most any Maverick net-minder has made in a season-opening game.
The Naples, Florida native was playing in his first game as a Maverick after spending his freshman campaign at American International College in Massachusetts, where he was named to the Northeast-10 Conference's All-Rookie team.
He was named as the
Peach Belt Conference/Rocky Mountain Division Defensive Player of the Week for the effort.
He was also named to the USILA's NCAA Division II Team of the Week.
Good on the kill
The Mavericks were good on the penalty kill during their opening road trip, giving up just one man up goal in their opponents' eight extra-man opportunities, good for an .875 man down defense percentage that leads the PBC/Rocky Mountain Division. The Mavs also rank 12
th nationally in the early season statistics.
The Mavs also scored a man down goal in the win over CUI.
What a return
After redshirting in 2024, redshirt sophomore attack
Connor Jensen has gotten off to a great start, scoring four goals in both of CMU's first two wins. With eight goals through two games, Jensen is already threatening his 11 goal total from his 2023 freshman season.
His 4-goal efforts were the best of his Maverick career and were the third and fourth hat-tricks in now 20 career games. The Brentwood, Tennessee native recorded two hat-tricks in 2023, both of which came against Adams State.
A tip of the hat
Erich Petersen also redshirted in 2024 and came out strong in 2025, recording what was his second career hat-trick in Monday's win over Dominican. He had scored five of his eight 2023 goals in a Apr. 30 win over Adams State. Petersen also had two goals in this year's season-opening win over CUI and is second on the Maverick squad early on with five goals.
Newest Century Man's streak reaches 23
Maverick senior
JJ Brummett, a preseason all-American, scored once against CUI and twice against Dominican and has now scored at least one goal in 23 consecutive games dating back to late in his 2023 sophomore season.
The goals against Dominican were the 100
th and 101
st of his career and allowed him to become just the sixth Maverick in program history to go into triple figures for career goals. He joins his older brother and former Maverick teammate Jed in that elite club.
Jed Brummett ranks third in CMU history with 123 career goals.
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 PB. 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 "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 are also eligible to receive at-large spots from the NCAA Division II South Region, as has been the case although it 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 43 teams from four leagues and one independent 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.
On the gradual climb
The Mavericks began the year ranked 18
th in the preseason edition of the United States Intercollegiate Lacrosse Association Poll and moved up to 17
th in the first regular season edition without having played a game.
The Mavs then moved up two more spots to 15th in the Week No. 2 poll, which was released on Monday before the Mavs' game against Dominican later that day. That increase was based on the win over CUI and other results from around the country.
The Mavs received 105 points in this week's poll, up from 69 in the week before.
The Mavs do have some conference company in the latest poll with bitter rival Westminster moving from the also receiving votes category into final and 20
th spot of the poll.
Flagler from the Peach Belt Division is receiving 13 votes.
CMU's Tuesday opponent Rockhurst is also in the others receiving votes category with 13 points.
The Bench Boss
Troy Moyer is early in 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-plus seasons as a head coach, Moyer has guided the Mavericks to a combined 31-6 (.838) record, including a 15-1 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 71-20 (.780) in his now seven seasons with Moyer on the sidelines.
A long road ahead
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. They will play their first seven away from home 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
William Jewell (Sunday – Noon CST/11 a.m. Mountain)
The Cardinals are off to a 2-1 start and have won their last two games. They defeated Malone, 13-7 in their home-opener last Friday after splitting two games in Harrogate, Tennessee, where they fell 9-6 to host Lincoln Memorial in their season opener on Feb. 7 before bouncing back for a 13-8 neutral site win over Chowan.
They went 7-8 overall and 1-5 in Great Lakes Valley Conference Play last year and were picked fifth out of six GLVC teams in the conference's preseason poll.
Declan Fines and Carson Wright to-lead the team offensively as each has tallied eight offensive points in the opening three games. Fines has seven goals and one assist while Wright has six markers and two helpers.
Face-off man Cody Kaiser has won 27 of 52 draws (.519) and leads the team with 16 ground balls.
Bear Anderson and Hudsin DenHartog lead the defensive unit. Each has nine ground balls and five caused turnovers.
Goalie Fynn Ziebarth has a strong 7.55 goals against average and a .511 save percentage.
Rockhurst (Tuesday – Noon CST/11 a.m. Mountain)
The Hawks are currently 1-3 on the season but have played a very tough schedule, dropping games to NO. 12 Maryville, No. 2 Tampa and RV Saint Leo after beating Quincy, 14-10 in their season opener. Two of their losses were by a single goal, including a 14-13 overtime decision to Maryville.
The Hawks will host Northwood on Sunday.
Jonah McConnell has scored 15 of the Hawks' 48 goals so far, tallying five in the overtime game against Maryville and four against both Quincy and Saint Leo.
Tyler Smith also has seven goals and 11 points while Nolan Hartl has recorded six assists and three goals.
Carson Bradshaw (.605) and Oran Lautenbach (.509) have split time on the face-off unite and both have winning marks at the "X". Bradshaw also leads the team with 18 ground balls while Bjorn Anderson is second with 15.
Matthew Kallberg has ten caused turnovers.
Goalie Brock Ollila has made 55 saves and sports a .519 save percentage and 12.70 goals against average. After having played all but two minutes and 15 seconds in net during the Hawks' four games thus far.
Series History
Sunday's game with William Jewell will mark the first time that the programs have faced one another.
The Mavs dominated the all-time series with Rockhurst, leading it 11-1 and winning each of the last six games. The teams were RMAC rivals and played each other twice per season from 2015-2018.
They have also played single games in 2020, 2022 and 2023 after first matching up in 2014.
CMU is 5-1 against the Hawks in Kansas City and won by a 16-6 margin in the last match-up between the teams there on Mar. 3, 2023.
Up Next
After playing four games in a jam-packed start to the season, the Mavs will get 2 ½ weeks off from competitive action before heading out to Florida for three games in a span of six days from Mar. 15-20, starting at Florida Southern in Lakeland.
