# 22 Colorado Mesa Mavericks

Record: 9-2

Conference Finish-Finished in a 3 way tie for first in the Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference.

Key Wins: Colorado Mines 41-40, Azusa Pacific 33-24.

Key Players-

QB Sean Rubalcaba (1,931 passing yards, 10 Passing TD’s)

RB David Tan (1,041 rushing yards, 20 rushing TD’s)

LB Blake Nelson (99 tackles, 54 for loss)

Overall Thoughts: So getting right down to it, we are picked to win this game for a plethora of reasons, but there is one thing to remember, this is the playoffs and anything can happen. The LSC has not had success in the playoffs as of late and even last season when Midwestern got to host a game, which gave them an extra week to practice and prepare in addition to hosting a team fresh off playing a tough game. That is the dynamic of the NCAA DII post season. Mesa seems to be a balanced team and has a tendency to play up to competition and also play down as they lost two games to teams that did not have the same records such as Black Hills State (7-4) and Dixie State (6-5), in fact Mesa was drilled by BHS and also had quite a few close calls and near misses. That being said, CMU’s overall body of work was impressive to beat teams like Colorado Pueblo, Azusa Pacific and of course, Colorado Mines. This is the first time to play this team, and the weather shows to not be favorable to a visiting team. Keep in mind these teams do not play with ANY humidity when they play in their region, that will change this Saturday. Also, Mesa seems to give up a lot of points as well. Only one team scored 30’s against the Lions, meanwhile 7  teams put up at least 25 against Mesa. Once again, scoring early and often should take out Mesa early in the game.

Lion Soccer-

Huge Congrats are in order to the Lady Lions Soccer team that notched a 1-0 win over Midwestern State to advance to the Elite 8 in the NCAA Division II National tournament. The Lions head north to Golden, Colorado to take on top ranked Colorado Mines in the Elite 8 on Friday at 1 PM CST. The season isn’t over yet, at the Lions are 2 games away from playing in a National Championship. Big time deal right now.