GRAND JUNCTION, Colo.— The Colorado Mesa University cross country teams will begin the championship half of the season on Saturday morning , racing in the Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference Championships in Rapid City, South Dakota.
 
The meet is both historically and based on the current national rankings, the deepest and toughest conference meet in all of NCAA Division II.
 
The men's 8-kilometer race will begin at 9:30 a.m. while the women's 6K race will be held at 10:15 a.m.  Awards will be presented following the races.
 
The meet, hosted by South Dakota Mines at the Hart Ranch Camping Resort will be streamed on the RMAC Network (subscription required).  More information about purchasing options can be found here.

Live results will be posted at the link above and recaps of the Mavericks' efforts will be posted on www.cmumavericks.com on Saturday.

There is a spectator parking fee of $10 per vehicle and fans are encouraged to purchase their parking pass in advance at RMACSports.org/Champ-Tickets.
 
Additional meet information and the fan guide can be accessed on the RMAC Championship webpage.
 
Last Time Out
 
The Mavericks last ran at home on Oct. 24, when they hosted the High Desert Dental Maverick XC Invite at Chipeta Golf Course in Grand Junction.
 
The Maverick women posted their first team win since 2015 and had six of the top seven individual finishers in what was a dual with Western Colorado.
 
The Maverick men finished second out of three teams and were led by Chase Brown's fourth place individual finish.
 
Full Recap: https://cmumavericks.com/news/2026/10/24/womens-cross-country-staniszewski-mav-women-win-home-meet.aspx
 
Maverick Entries
 
Teams are limited to 11 entries for the RMAC Championships and must trim that list to ten by Friday.  In previous years, teams were limited to nine active runners.
 
As in standard process, the top five finishers for each team will count for the team score while the sixth and seventh place finishers will displace runners from other teams to raise their opponents' scores.  The eighth, ninth and tenth runners from each team will not figure into the team scoring and will in essence be running as individuals, although it is worth noting that teams to not have to declare their top seven in advance of the races.
Maverick Head Coach Travis Floeck has already set his 10-person lineups, listed below.
 
Twelve (six men, six women) of his 20 selections have previously run at the RMAC Cross Country Championships.  For those that have run before, their best championship finish and year of that is listed in parenthesis.

Men (10): Chase Brown (56^th, 2024), Nick Clark, Owen Frank (84^th, 2025), Daxin Holtzen, Peter Leary, Evan Morrison, Dominick Muller (55^th, 2025), Ryan O'Loughlin (75^th, 2024), Colton White (71^st, 2025), Clayton Wilson (74^th, 2025)
 
Women (11): Lola Boice, Quin Dedrick (35^th, 2024), Wehazit Kelati (49^th, 2025), Daisy Lalonde, Kate Linstedt (37^th, 2024), Autumn McQuitty (54^th, 2024), Lily Nichols, Jordan Staniszewski (28^th, 2025), Chloe Swan, Shirley Weaver (39^th, 2024)
 
What's at Stake
 
In addition to conference team titles, Saturday's races, which will feature 15 teams, will determine the 2026 All-RMAC teams and many other of the conference's major awards, which will be presented following the race.  The top 14 individual finishers in each race will earn First Team All-RMAC plaudits with the winner being named as the RMAC Runner of the Year.  The 15^th-28^th place finishers will each be named to the second team.
 
The RMAC Freshman of the Year awards will also be given to the top freshman in each race while the RMAC Summit Awards will be given to the student-athlete with the highest GPA in each race.
 
The RMAC Coach of the Year awards will be determined by a vote of the head coaches and announced on Saturday at the meet as well.
 
In the Polls
 
The Maverick women are 22^nd in the latest edition of the U.S. Track & Field and Cross Country Coaches Association's National Coaches' Poll, released on Oct. 28.  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 18 consecutive polls dating back to the Week No. 5 poll of 2024 after receiving votes in the previous three editions.
 
Loaded Fields
 
As is typically the case, the RMAC Championship fields appear to be loaded with more talent than any other conference in the country.
 
Eight women's teams, including the 22^nd-ranked Mavs, are ranked in the latest (Oct. 15) U.S. Track & Field and Cross Country Coaches Association's NCAA Division II Coaches Poll. 
 
The eight teams are double the total of any other conference (MIAA, 4).
 
That list includes four of the top seven and half (six) of the top 12, including No. 1 Adams State, No. 4 Colorado School of Mines, the defending conference champions.  No. 5 Western Colorado, No. 7 UCCS, No. 11 Colorado Christian and No. 12 Fort Lewis are also ranked ahead of the Mavs and No. 27 Black Hills State.
 
On the men's side, the RMAC has seven ranked teams, including two of the top three ranked teams in No. 2 Mines and No. 3 Adams State, the defending conference champions.  No. 9 Western Colorado is also in the top ten while No. 13 Fort Lewis, No. 14 UCCS, No. 19 Colorado Christian and No. 26 CSU Pueblo are all ranked as well.
 
No other conference has more than three men's teams in the poll of 30 teams.
 
Regional Rankings

Both Maverick teams are  amongst the top ten teams in the South Central Region, according to the latest USTFCCCA Regional Rankings, published on Oct. 27 (Week No. 6).
 
The Maverick women are ranked eighth as all eight of the nationally-ranked teams are in the top ten.  West Texas A&M, ranked eighth nationally and Dallas Baptist, ranked 25^th nationally, are the only two Lone Star Conference teams in the top ten and occupy the No. 5 and 9 spots.
 
The RMAC's seven nationally-ranked men's teams plus the Mavs are also amongst the region's top ten with West Texas A&M and Dallas Baptist occupying the other two spots as the LSC's only representatives.  CMU's men are ranked ninth.
 
Winner, Winner
 
Maverick senior Jordan Staniszewski dominated the field at the Maverick XC Invitational, winning by 36.4 seconds seconds with a career-best 6K time of 21:09.5.  She is the first Maverick— men's or women's— to win a cross country race since Kira MacGill won the 2022 season-opener, which was also in a two-team meet against Western Colorado.   
 
Thanks to her win, Staniszewski was named as the RMAC's Runner of the Week on Oct. 28. (LINK)
 
Team Win
 
The Maverick women posted a 1-2-3 sweep and had six of the top seven finishers at their home meet, while compiling a 17-45 win over No. 5 Western Colorado, which did not run any of their top five finishers from their previous meet.
 
In the process, the Mavericks posted their first team meet win since 2015.
 
1-2-3 Career Best
 
All three of the Mavericks' top three women's finishers at the High Desert Dental Maverick Invitational set their fastest 6K times of their career.
 
Jordan Staniszewski's winning time of 21:09.5 was four tenths quicker than her 21:09.9 at the Pre-Nationals Meet, held just 13 days earlier.
 
McQuitty's time of 21:45.9, was also 34 full seconds quicker than her former best of 22:19.9 from the 2024 RMAC Championships.
 
Freshman Addie Hollmann also posted the fastest of her three collegiate races, recording a time of 22:02.5 , 11 seconds quicker than her Pre-Nationals time.
 
Sophomores Lola Boice (23:50.8) and Sofia Voss (24:39.9) also recorded career-best times of in their third career races while freshman Emily Scott ran a 6K race for the first time, posting a time of 24:57.6.
 
Top Ten Debuts
 
Maverick fifth-year senior Chase Brown finished fourth at the High Desert Dental Maverick XC Invitational, recording the first top five and top ten finish of his CMU Cross Country Career.
 
Freshman Daxin Holtzen also recorded an eighth place finish to register the first top ten of his 3-race collegiate career.
 
Mr. Consistency
 
Maverick sophomore Dominick Muller recorded a time of 26:17.9 and has now posted exactly the same time in each of the last two meets.  He had posted the same time at the Pre-Nationals meet in Lawrence, Kansas just 13 days earlier.
 
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.
 
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 both the Team Knockout and Team Five algorithms.
 
The Maverick men are 31^st in both sets of rankings.
 
Those algorithms also rank individual runners.
 
Jordan Staniszewski is 13^th in the women's rankings, up one spot from before her win at the High Desert Dental Maverick XC Invitational, while Clayton Wilson is 72^nd in the men's set.
 
To view the XCRI rankings and learn more about the rankings are calculated, please visit the USTFCCCA's webpage: https://web4.ustfccca.org/iz/xcri
 
RMAC History Lesson
 
The Adams State Men and Colorado School of Mines won last year's RMAC team titles, snapping the winning streaks of the other institution.
 
Mines' Grace Strongman won last year's RMAC individual women's title while leading the Orediggers to their first team title.  She was also the first Oredigger to ever win the individual title.
 
The Adams State women had four straight titles from 2022-25 and have won 35 overall titles since the first championship was awarded in 1981, including 12 of the last 14.  The Grizzlies have also had 32 individual champions since 1983.
 
Western is the only other women's team to have won the team crown, doing so eight times, most recently in 2020.  The Mountaineers have also had seven individual champions.  CMU (Alexis Skarda, 2010), Fort Lewis and Southern Utah have had one individual champion.
 
Meanwhile, Adams State's men snapped Mines' winning streak of six titles in 2025.  The Grizzly men now have 38 RMAC titles, including two shared crowns, while Western has claimed 13, one of which they shared with the Grizzlies.
 
The Mines men have won eight of the last ten RMAC titles after Adams State and Western dominated the conference for over three decades.
 
Mines' Paul Knight won the individual title in 2025 after Oredigger runners had won four straight individual titles from 2019-22.  New Mexico Highlands' Andrew Amor stopped that run while becoming the first Cowboy to ever win a RMAC title in 2023.  Adams State's Romain Legendre won the 2024 individual title.
 
CMU History
 
The Maverick women claimed a sixth place finish at last year's RMAC Championships, which was the program's highest since 2014, when they took fourth.  Their best ever finishes were third place team tallies in 2008 and 2009.  The Mavs also tied for third back in 1991, when only five teams competed.
 
CMU's men, who first competed in 2011, had finished fifth in the 2020, 2021 and 2022 championships and finished 11^th last year.  Their best ever finishes were in 2014 and 2015, when they took fourth.
 
On an individual scale, the Maverick women have had 21 total All-RMAC performers since 1991 and have had one honoree in each of the last six years.  That list includes Jordan Staniszewski, who earned Second Team All-RMAC a year ago.  She will be hoping to become just the sixth Maverick woman to have earned two or more All-RMAC honors.
 
The Maverick men have earned 16 combined All-RMAC honors since 2014.  Seven of those honors have come in the last six years alone, most recently in 2022 when Tony Torres and Ethan Abbs both claimed second team accolades.

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 continue the championship meets at the NCAA Division II South Central Regional Championships on Nov. 21 in Lubbock, Texas.
 
That meet and the other seven regionals from around the country will determine qualification for the NCAA National Championships on Dec. 4 in Lawrence, Kansas.