DENVER— The 14th-ranked Colorado Mesa University women's cross country team posted an impressive second place finish ahead of both No. 4 Colorado School of Mines and No. 7 UCCS as well as three NCAA Division I teams in the Mavs' season-opening meet on Saturday.
Jordan Stanisewski led the Mavs with eighth place time of 22 minutes, 9.53 seconds on the 6-kilometer course here at Washington Park while scoring six team points as the top NCAA Division II and Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference runner in the Roadrunners Invitational field.
The Colorado Buffaloes, ranked 18th in the U.S. Track & Field and Cross Country Coaches Association's NCAA Division I Preseason Poll, took the top four overall and the top five team-scoring places to win the meet with a perfect score of 15 points although the Mavs posted a nice team score of just 58 points while putting five runners amongst the top 18 team-scoring runners.
The Mavs were ahead of Division I Wyoming, which finished third with 76 points, and their nationally-ranked RMAC foes, who took fourth and fifth, with 144 and 154 points, respectively.
The Mavs also finished ahead of Division I Northern Colorado (154) and Air Force (185) as well as two RMAC foes Regis (200) and MSU Denver (228).
Senior
Autumn McQuitty was the Mavs' No. 2 runner on the day taking 11th overall while contributing nine points. She finished in 22:48.63.
Meanwhile, sophomore
Daisy Lalonde finished 15th in 23:08.14 while crossing the line with freshman teammate
Addie Hollmann, who was 16th overall and 13th amongst team scorers.
Quin Dedrick rounded out the Mavs' team score with 18 points and a 21st place time of 23:28.39 while
Wehazit Kelati, 25th overall in 23:36.74 and
Kate Linstedt, 26th in 23:37.53 also fared well.
Meanwhile, the Maverick men finished a solid fourth.
CMU also had representatives at the Mountaineer/Cowboy Invite in Gunnison, which allowed host Western Colorado University to make its' home meet a countable meet.
Freshman
Emily Scott led the group of five Maverick women with a 18th place time of 21:56.0.
