GRAND JUNCTION, Colo. -- The Colorado Mesa Mavericks open the 2014 RMAC Baseball Championships as the No. 1 seed, with New Mexico Highlands No. 2, CSU-Pueblo No. 3, and the Colorado Mines Orediggers rounding out the field.
Colorado Mesa (37-10, 31-7 RMAC) enters the conference postseason winners of 17 of their last 20. They boast the top team batting average in NCAA Division II at .362, bolstered by the nation's top hitter Austin Kaiser, who hits at a .509 clip. The Mavericks own an out of conference series sweep versus West region No. 5 Dixie State, from early in February. They also defeated Division I Northern Colorado the following weekend.
New Mexico Highlands (31-18, 28-11 RMAC) split with Colorado Mesa during the regular season. Their late surge has them on a 17-3 tear entering the postseason. Junior Matthew Chavez leads a power-hitting Cowboy offense that registers in the top 15 in the nation in batting average, slugging percentage, triples per game, and home runs per game. Chavez hits at a .450 pace, good for sixth in the nation.
Facing N.M. Highlands in the opening round will be CSU-Pueblo (27-22, 23-15 RMAC), who took two of three from the region's second-ranked team West Texas A&M in early February. Mike Fabrizio, pitcher for the ThunderWolves leads the conference in strikeouts by a wide margin, with 74. Head Coach Stan Sanchez recently became the only RMAC coach (in any sport) in the conference's 105 year history to win 700 games. CSU-Pueblo also recently set an NCAA Division II attendance record for their "Pack the Park" promotion.
The fourth seed goes to Colorado Mines (24-21, 22-16 RMAC), who was ranked 10th in the most recent National Collegiate Baseball Writers Association poll. The Orediggers improved five games over last year's RMAC campaign (four overall) to reach the conference tournament. This is Colorado Mines' first top-four finish in the conference since 1999.
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