GRAND JUNCTION, Colo.— The Colorado Mesa University cross country teams will host their lone meet of the season as they close out the regular season portion of the 2026 season on Saturday at the Lincoln Park Golf Course.
The Mavericks will welcome in Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference opposition from Fort Lewis College and Western Colorado University for the relatively small High Desert Dental Maverick XC Invitational, a final tune-up for the RMAC Championships in two weeks.
Saturday's women's 6K race will begin at 4:30 p.m. with the men's 8K to follow at 5:05 p.m. A community 6K race will follow at 5:45 p.m.
Live results can be accessed at the link above. Course maps can be seen in the meet information packet.
Last Time Out
The Mavericks last raced on Sunday, Oct. 11 at the NCAA Pre-Nationals Meet in Lawrence, Kansas at Rim Rock Farm, the location of the Dec. 4 NCAA Division II National Championship meet.
The Maverick women finished sixth in a field 18 teams, which included national nationally-ranked squads, while CMU's men finished eighth in a field of 15 teams and ahead of a nationally-ranked foe in No. 27 Missouri Southern State.
Jordan Staniszewski and
Clayton Wilson both took sixth to lead the Mavericks in the individual standings.
The Maverick women, ranked15th nationally at the time, batted against five teams inside the top ten of the national coaches poll at the time, and scored 174 team points while racking up 11 head-to-head wins over 11 out of region teams while suffering just two losses.
Staniszewski posted a career-best time of 21:09.9 as one of five Maverick women who posted the fastest 6K times of their collegiate careers.
Earlier, Wilson posted a career-best 8K time of 24:18.3 as he registered the best finish of his collegiate career.
The full meet recap can be seen here.
Maverick Entries
Here is a list of the Maverick entries for Saturday's races.
Women (11): Lola Boice,
Daisy Lalonde,
Autumn McQuitty,
Emily Scott,
Chloe Swan,
Shirley Weaver,
Addie Hollmann,
Kate Linstedt,
Lily Nichols,
Jordan Staniszewski,
Sofia Voss
Men (14): Lucas Blevins,
Chase Brown,
Nick Clark,
Dillon Elliott,
Owen Frank,
Daxin Holtzen,
Howie Huffman,
Kael Jex,
Bode Klein,
Peter Leary,
Evan Morrison,
Dominick Muller,
Ryan O'Loughlin,
Colton White,
As of Thursday morning, 73 total runners (49 men, 24 women), including a few unattached runners are signed up for the races.
Career-Bests
A host of Maverick runners turned in their career-best times at the Pre-Nationals meet.
Five Maverick women set new 6K career best times, which are listed below, while eight CMU men all set new 8K bests.
Women
Jordan Staniszewski- 21:09.9
Addie Hollmann- 22:13.5
Wehazit Kelati- 22:32.2
Lily Nichols- 22:49.8
Chloe Swan- 23:37.0
Men
Clayton Wilson- 24:18.3
Colton White- 25:15.5
Daxin Holtzen- 25:21.3
Owen Frank- 25:30.0
Bode Klein- 26:01.8
Dominick Muller-26:17.9
Dillon Elliott-26:39.5
Nick Clark- 27:21.9
A Look back to 2025
The Maverick women qualified as a team for the NCAA Division II National Championships for the second straight year and posted their best ever national championship finish, taking 20
th at the championship meet in Kenosha, Wisconsin.
Prior to that, the Maverick women finished sixth at the RMAC Championships and then earned an at-large berth into the national championships thanks to their seventh place finish at the South Central Regional.
The Maverick women were nationally ranked throughout the season, reaching as high as No. 14 after a strong fourth place finish out of 36 teams at the Lewis Crossover Invitational.
The Maverick men, who were quite youthful in 2025, also had a strong end to the 2026 season, taking ninth at the NCAA South Central Regional Championships, the team's best finish in three years.
In the Polls
The Maverick women are 20
th in this week's edition of the
U.S. Track & Field and Cross Country Coaches Association's National Coaches' Poll, released on Wednesday. They were ranked 13
th in the preseason edition of the poll and have been ranked throughout the season.
The CMU women have now been nationally-ranked in 17 consecutive polls dating back to the Week No. 5 poll of 2024 after receiving votes in the previous three editions.
Western Colorado, CMU's opposition this week, is ranked fifth.
The Maverick men are not in the top 30 poll but will look to make a statement against No. 9 Western Colorado and No. 14 Fort Lewis, two of the seven RMAC teams in the poll.
Regional Rankings
All three of the men's teams and both of the women's teams in Saturday's meet are included in the latest
U.S. Track & Field and Cross Country Coaches Association's South Central Regional rankings, which were released on Tuesday.
Western Colorado's men are ranked fourth while Fort Lewis is fifth. The Mavericks are ranked ninth.
Western's women are ranked third while CMU is eighth, up one spot from last week despite not running last week.
Checking out the Math
The USTFCCCA also has two mathematical algorithms to calculate the XCRI (Cross Country Rating Index).
CMU's women sit 12
th nationally in the Team Knockout algorithm and 14
th in the Team Five algorithm.
The Maverick men are 32
nd in the Team Five and 33
rd in the Knockout.
Those algorithms also rank individual runners.
Jordan Staniszewski is 14
th in the women's rankings
Clayton Wilson is 71
st in the men's set.
To view the XCRI rankings and learn more about the rankings are calculated,
please visit the USTFCCCA's webpage.
RMAC Polls
The Maverick women were tabbed fifth in the RMAC Preseason Coaches' Poll,
released last in late August. The Maverick men were picked eighth out of the 15 teams.
Year No. 3
Travis Floeck is in his third season with the Mavs. Named as CMU's Director of Track & Field/Cross Country in the summer of 2024, Floeck has guided the Maverick women to back-to-back NCAA Division II Championship team qualifications, a first for the program.
They turned in a 20
th place finish in 2025, the Mavs' highest national championship finish in program history, after taking 23
rdin 2024.
The Mav women also finished sixth at last year's RMAC Championships and seventh at the NCAA South Central Regional. Both of those finishes were the program's best since 2014, which was the only other year when the Mavs qualified as a team for the national meet.
The Maverick men also had their best regional finish in three years under Floeck last season.
Up Next
The Mavericks will take next week off before beginning the championship portion of the season at the RMAC Championships on Nov. 7 in Rapid City, South Dakota.
