GRAND JUNCTION, Colo.— Six Colorado Mesa University athletes were named to the 2025-26 NCAA Division II Academic All-District® Men's Cross Country/Track & Field teams as selected by College Sports Communicators.  The list of Maverick honorees includes Chase Brown, Aidan Brownell, Van Chambers, Antone Higgs, Hayden Moreno and Izaak Siefken.
 
Siefken was also selected to the national ballot for Academic All-America® honors, which CSC will announce on July 14.  He, Brown, and Higgs were also Academic All-District honorees in 2024-25. 
 
Brownell, Chambers and Moreno, all of whom were sophomores and in their first year of eligibility for Academic All-District® honors.
 
To be eligible for nomination, student-athletes must have a 3.50 or higher cumulative grade point average, be at least a sophomore, both academically or athletically and meet an athletic performance threshold of being ranked in the top 50 of their region for at least one individual track & field event or being amongst the top 50 finishers at the NCAA regional cross country championship.
 
Furthermore, Institutions were limited to six nominations per gender for the Academic All-District team.
 
Six Maverick women were also honored.
 
Siefken, a redshirt senior javelin thrower out of Broomfield, Colorado, has a 3.62 GPA and is majoring in mechanical engineering.  He earned Second Team U.S. Track & Field and Cross Country Coaches Association All-America honors with a 14^th place finish at the NCAA Outdoor Championships in May.  He also won his second straight Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference title with a RMAC Championship and CMU record throw of 68.75 meters (225 feet, 7 inches).
 
Brown, a redshirt junior civil engineering major from Bloomingdale, Michigan, holds a perfect 4.00 GPA.  The distance runner was named to the First Team Academic All-RMAC squad during all three seasons (Cross Country, Indoor Track & Field, Outdoor Track & Field) of the academic year and received his third career RMAC Summit Award during the cross country campaign.  He also set career-best times in multiple individual events in track and helped CMU set a NCAA provisional qualifying time in the distance medley relay.
 
Brownell, a sophomore hurdler from LaSalle, Colorado, has a 3.59 GPA and is an entrepreneurship major.  He joined Brown and Siefken as the Mavs' representatives on the First Team Academic All-RMAC squad for the outdoor season and claimed the silver medal at the RMAC Championships in the 400-meer hurdles with a career-best time of 52.19 seconds, which was an NCAA Championship provisional qualifying effort and the second fastest in Maverick lore.
 
Chambers, a sophomore from Chico, California, is majoring in adaptive physical education and has a 3.84 GPA.  He set a Maverick record in the 35-pound weight throw during the indoor season with a NCAA provisional qualifying mark of 18.58 meters (60-11.5) and was a USTFCCCA All-Region selection.
 
Higgs, a senior jumper out of Freeport, The Bahamas, has a 3.51 GPA while majoring in sport management.  He narrowly missed out on a spot in the NCAA outdoor championships in the triple jump on tie-breaking procedures after posting a career-best mark of 15.08 meters (49-5.75) early in the season after redshirting during the indoor campaign.  That effort also allowed him to claim all-region honors from the USTFCCCA.
 
Moreno holds a 3.65 GPA and is majoring in exercise science.  The Hotchkiss, Colorado native also earned Second Team All-Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference honors with a fourth place finish at the conference indoor championships in the long jump.