COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo.— Colorado Mesa University freshman attack Ari Villano was named as the Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference's Men's Offensive Player of the Week, conference officials announced on Monday afternoon.
 
The award comes after the Bend, Oregon native scored eight goals in the Mavericks three games last week.  He recorded back-to-back hat tricks in the Mavs' RMAC home wins over Dominican and CUI after scoring twice in Tuesday's mid-week game at Flagler in St. Augustine, Florida.
 
In the 22-6 win over Dominican on Friday night, he also added an assist and was credited with the game-winning goal.
 
Throughout the week, Villano put ten of his 11 total shots on net and recorded five ground balls.
 
He has scored in seven of his last eight games and is second on the CMU squad with 14 goals thus far.
 
Villano is the third different Maverick to receive the RMAC's weekly offensive honor joining Aidan Brock (Feb. 16) and last week's winner Connor Jensen.  The Mavs also had back-to-back defensive honorees over the previous two weeks in Manny Flores (Mar. 9) and Shaden Shields (Mar. 16).
 
The Mavericks, who are ranked 15^th nationally in Monday's USILA NCAA Division II Coaches Poll, are 6-2 overall and tied for the RMAC lead with a 3-0 conference record heading into a key clash at co-leading Westminster on Thursday night at 7 p.m. in Salt Lake City, Utah.  The Griffins (4-3, 3-0 RMAC) are receiving votes in the USILA Poll and have the reigning RMAC Defensive Player of the Week in goalie Christian Jones, who made 17 saves in their win over Northwest Nazarene on Saturday.