Both Chadron State College basketball teams will be playing Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference games on Colorado's Western Slope this weekend. The Eagles will visit Western State in Gunnison on Friday night and tangle with Colorado Mesa in Grand Junction on Saturday night.
 
Both double-headers have 5:30 starting times.
 
Both of this weekend's hosts visited CSC early in the season. Both Mesa teams were victorious. The Lady Mavericks prevailed 87-43 and the Mesa men won 77-62 behind 26 points by senior center Colton Burgon.
 
The CSC women got their first victory of the season the next night, 78-70, when the Eagles hit 26 of 51 field goal shots and four of them scored in double figures against Western State.
 
The Mountaineers won the men's game 69-66 as Travis Shepherd, a 6-foot-5 forward, scored eight of his team's final nine points and CSC scored just one point in the last three minutes.
 
The Mesa women, who are ranked seventh in Division II, lost its first game of the season on Saturday, when Colorado Christian, now 12-7 for the season, earned a 77-73 win in Denver. The Lady Mavs are now 18-1 overall and 14-1 in the RMAC. They feature one of the conference's best players, 6-foot senior Kelsey Sigl, who is shooting 57 percent from the field and averaging 17.8 points and 6.3 rebounds.
 
The Mesa men are 14-5 overall and 11-4 in the conference. They also lost, 83-65, to a surging Colorado Christian team after beating Colorado Mines 77-74 in overtime Friday night.
 
Burgon, who is 6-8, leads the Mavs at 15.3 points and 6.9 rebounds. Another top player for Mesa is 6-4 senior Jeff Hart, who is averaging 14.4 points and has made 45.8 percent of his 3-point attempts.
 
The Western State women have won just one game this season. Sophomore Jade McIntosh leads them in scoring at 12.9 per game.
 
The Mountaineer men have taken a tumble recently. They have lost seven games in a row after opening the season at 7-4. The team's top scorer at the midway point in the season was guard Terrence Boyd, who was averaging 16.3 points but he has not played in the last five games.
 
Western still possesses 6-10, 300-pounder Charles Joseph. He was on the bench but did not play against the Eagles, He has played in recent games and is averaging 12.6 points and 7.2 rebounds while playing in 14 of the team's 18 contests.