This Week's Matchup
UCCS Baseball (7-11, 3-1 RMAC) carries their first conference win of the season to Grand Junction, Colo. where the Mountain Lions are set to take on No. 6 Colorado Mesa University in a four-game set starting Friday, Mar. 18 at 3 p.m. The series will continue with a seven-inning double header on Saturday at 1 p.m. and 4 p.m. with the series ending on Sunday, Mar. 20 at 12 p.m.
 
Game Coverage
Live Stream: https://www.rmacnetwork.com/gomountainlions/
Live Stats: https://cmumavericks.com/sidearmstats/baseball/summary
 
Last Time Out

• UCCS opened conference play this past weekend by hosting New Mexico Highlands University and closed it out by taking the series, 3-1.
• Jonathan Cowles provided the Mountain Lions with the first win of the series by heaving eight full innings of work and allowing just one run as UCCS claimed the 5-1 win with five different Mountain Lions driving a run in.
• Sunday's double header saw a split with the Cowboys coming back from a 2-0 deficit to going on to win 5-3 as the Mountain Lions outhit NMHU 9-5 while struggling in the field with three errors. In game two, UCCS held on to the lead and never let go as starting catcher Matt Johnson drove in a game high five RBI including his first career grand slam to help life UCCS to a 15-9 win.
• Game four saw an early Cowboys lead after carrying a 7-6 lead into the bottom half of the fourth inning as the one-run NMHU lead was quickly wiped after a seven-run fourth fueled a 16-8 win. Kit Wigington, Tyler Richardson, and Aaron Faragallah all tallied three RBI in the series clinching win as Wigington finished the afternoon going a perfect 4-for-4 with two doubles.

 
RMAC Standings

• Through two weeks of conference play, three teams are tied atop the RMAC Standings at a .750 conference winning percentage with Colorado Mesa (15-5, 6-2 RMAC), Colorado State University Pueblo (13-9, 6-2 RMAC), and UCCS (7-11, 3-1 RMAC) all tied.

 
The Series

• UCCS holds a respectable 7-15 record against the Mavericks with the most recent matchup dating to May 27 of last year where CMU recorded an 11-9 win in the NCAA Regional Tournament. The Mountain Lions faced CMU a total of eight times in 2021 with three of those games going UCCS' way, including an 18-9 win to claim the RMAC Tournament Title.

 
Scouting Colorado Mesa

• CMU (15-5, 6-2 RMAC) remains one of the top teams in all of Division II as the Mavericks come off a series split in Golden, Colo. against Colorado School of Mines.
• The Mavericks dropped games two and three at a score of 4-6 and 5-6, respectively, as the No. 6 team in the nation garnered a 12-6 win to start the series and claimed a 4-0 shutout win behind Kannon Handy who threw a seven-inning no-hitter for the program's first since Luke Cheever no-hit Colorado School of Mines on April 8, 2006.
• Handy's career outing boasts the sophomore to a team leading 3-1 record on the bump where he registers a 3.86 ERA and 1.11 WHIP while also fanning a team high 35 batters in 28.0 innings of work. Right-handed reliever Gage Edwards holds the team lead in ERA at 2.57 through 14 complete innings on the mound with six appearances and one start where he has limited the opposition to a mere .173 batting average.
• As a team, the Mavericks are averaging the conference's third most strikeouts per nine innings (8.9) and rank second in the RMAC with a 5.11 ERA. CMU's pitching is backed by the best fielding percentage in the RMAC at .973.
• On the opposite side of the ball is where the Mavericks have been dominant as CMU is hitting .363 as a team which is the second highest average in the nation. With the seventh most hits in the nation (257) CMU is producing the best slugging percentage in all of Division II (.647) where they average the country's second most home runs per game (2.20) and ninth most doubles per game (2.65).
• Paving the way for the heavy hitting CMU offense is reigning national and regional player of the year Haydyn McGeary who is hammering a .528 average (third in DII) with a 1.042 slugging percentage (second in DII) with nine home runs, eight doubles, and 24 RBI. But the team's home run and RBI crown currently belongs to Caleb Farmer who has knocked out 12 home runs (third in DII) and 31 RBI (11^th in DII) behind a .407 batting average and 1.495 on base-plus-slugging.

 
Hot Takes

• The Mountain Lions have been successful, and in fact, have been one of the best teams in the country in finding the gaps with he sixth most doubles (57) in DII and the second most doubles per game (3.17) in the nation.
• Kiichi Sato has produced the most doubles on the team and second most in the RMAC (10) as he also ranks eighth in DII. But with a doubles per game average of 0.56, Sato leads the conference. The redshirt junior has started in all 18 games and has hit his way to a .414 average for the fifth best in the conference.
• Also starting in all 18 games is starting right fielder Aaron Faragallah who is holding a .333 batting average with a team high 18 RBI.
• Matt Johnson blasted his first career home run and grand slam as a Mountain Lion last weekend as he totaled an impressive six RBI through two games in the series.
• UCCS has plated double-digit runs in six different games this season, including four out of the previous six games with 15 or more UCCS runs scored.
• With eight complete innings on Saturday, Jonathan Cowles recorded his longest outing of the season. His season ERA improves to 3.29 on four starts in five appearances with a 1.17 WHIP and a 3-1 record. Cowles remains as the strikeout leader with 22 and still owns two complete games on the year (tied 11^th most in DII).
• Starter John Hoffman recorded his most efficient outing as a Mountain Lion on Sunday where the redshirt freshman threw 4.1 innings and allowed two runs on two hits as he now holds opponents to a team low batting average of .203.
• Jaeden Hegmann has maintained a batting average north of .300 (.316) and has worked his way around to score 19 times for a runs per game average of 1.36 which ranks as the second highest in the RMAC.
• Reliever Evan Langston picked up his first win in the black and gold on Monday after throwing three full innings and giving up one earned run off three hits.
• Brian Marquez bagged his third career save in game four against NMHU by working through three complete innings where he struck out five Cowboys and gave up just one hit.
• In the field, the Mountain Lions have turned the second most double plays (15) in the league but average the most double plays per game (0.83).
• UCCS has registered three or more extra base hits in the last six games as they have recorded 43 extra base hits in that time frame.

 
UCCS Under Head Coach Dave Hajek

• Dave Hajek, who led UCCS to its first RMAC championship in program history, is in his sixth season as the Head Coach of the University of Colorado Colorado Springs baseball program in 2022. He's coached the only MLB Draft pick in Zach Hall and the only All-Americans in Matt McDermott, Matt Clarke, Jake Anderson, and Evan Richards.
• In six seasons, Hajek holds a .544 winning percentage with a 121-100 overall record that includes, four RMAC Tournament appearances, one RMAC Tournament Championship, a 5-7 RMAC Tournament record, and one NCAA Tournament appearance.

 
Upcoming Games

• The Mountain Lions come back home to host Metropolitan State University of Denver inside Mountain Lion Park starting with game one on Friday, Mar. 25 at 3 p.m.

 
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As a member of the Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference, the University of Colorado Colorado Springs competes in 16 varsity sports in NCAA Division II intercollegiate athletics.