GRAND JUNCTION, Colo.— The Colorado Mesa University Maverick swimming and diving teams combined to break five meet records and post 17 NCAA Championship qualifying marks during a dominating first day of the action at the A3 Performance/CMU Invitational, Thursday in the El Pomar Natatorium.
 
Senior All-America diver Sage D'Ambrosia also broke the pool record and his own school record on the 3-meter board as the Maverick men won all six events of the day while opening a commanding 475-224 point lead over second-place Colorado School of Mines.
 
The Maverick women were also quite impressive winning three events while banking 461 points on the first of three days, 260 more than the Orediggers who sit second amongst eight teams with 201.

D'Ambrosia tallied 560.15 points over 11 dives to break the 4-year old pool record of 551.40, previously held by Brock Martin.  He also tallied 361 points in his six optional dives during the evening session to better his own school-record­.
 
D'Ambrosia, who had already booked a spot in the NCAA Division II National Championship Diving Qualifier earlier in the season, will be joined in Greensboro, N.C. by teammate Noah Macomber.  He finished second with a point total of 497.70 after winning the preliminaries with a score of 517.45.  Both easily surpassed the NCAA qualifying standard of 460 points.
 
The Maverick women also had three divers reach the qualifying standard of 390 points in the 1-meter event.  Kelsey Vreeman won the discipline with 429.45 points while Brittany Dixon took second with 407.10.  Natalya Dahlke also set a qualifying score of 391.35 points in the preliminaries before finishing fifth as the Mavericks took each of the top six spots to score big team points.
 
The Maverick swimmers also shined brightly as Sam Bryant and Sky Hirsch set individual meet records while helping lead the Maverick relay teams to meet records as well.
 
Hirsch broke his own meet record in the 50-yard freestyle during the morning preliminary session with a time of 20.52 before coming back to clock a time of 20.56 to win the finals over Chris Radomski (20.65), who also set a NCAA provisional qualifying time in the event.  Hirsch also led off the 200 free relay team with a 20.53-second split before Radomski, Morgan Bean and Noah Beaver finished the race off in a time of 1:21.31 to better the 1-year old meet record of 1:22.63.  Radomski, Bean and Hirsch had set that mark along with Eric Berg last year.
 
Meanwhile, Bryant posted an impressive time of 4:31.88 to better the 1-year old meet record of 4:34.20, set by Wyoming's Jack Herron.  That mark was one of four Maverick "B" cut times in the finals as the Mavericks took each of the top nine places in the event.  Torsten Rau (4:37.99), Jacob Dexter (4:39.74) and Jason Hicks (4:40.01) also set national qualifying marks in the finals while fifth-place Landon Ellis had done so with a time of 4:40.40 in the preliminaries.
 
CMU then capped the night with a meet-record time of 3:20.71 in the 400 medley relay.  Berg, Bryant, Radomski and Hirsch made up that team that broke Wyoming's former meet record of 3:22.24, which had been set in 2014.
 
Nico Tscherner was also an event-winner and NCAA "B" qualifier.  The Gelsenkirchen, Germany native claimed the 200 IM in 1:52.34.
 
The Maverick women also won the 200 IM as Danielle Jefferies touched in 2:06.83.
 
Meanwhile, Megan Sirijariyavat, Sierra Forbord, Maddie Pressler and Noel Scott started the evening with a 200 free relay win as they posted a time of 1:35.09, bettering the "B" team of Natalie Saul, Sam White, Celine Sargis and Hannah Mabile by 2.07 seconds.
 
Maddie McClain (5:04.29) and Katelin Staab (5:05.43) also set NCAA provisional qualifying times in the 500 free to take second and third, respectively, while Sirijariyavat did so in the 50 free, touching in 23.91 seconds behind only Western State Colorado's Randi Yarnell, who broke her own meet record with a time of 23.42.
 
Friday's action will begin with a preliminary session at 10 a.m.  The Day 2 finals will begin at 5 p.m.