GRAND JUNCTION, Colo.— The Colorado Mesa University Men's and Women's Swimming & Diving teams will continue their young season Saturday when they travel to Denver to compete against the NCAA Division I University of Denver in the Pioneers' El Pomar Natatorium.
 
Meet details
 
Saturday's dual meet with the Pioneers will begin at 1:15 p.m. with diving competition on both the 1 and 3-meter boards.  A 14-event swim schedule, book-ended by the 200-yard medley and freestyle relays, will then begin at 3:30 p.m., a change from the originally planned 2 p.m. start.
 
A complete list of the swimming events can be seen below.
 
There will not be any live streaming or live results provided by DU but fans can look for a full recap on Saturday evening on www.cmumavericks.com.
 
Swimming schedule
 200 Medley Relay
1000 Free
200 Free
100 Back
100 Breast
200 Fly
50 Free
-Break-
100 Free
200 Back
200 Breast
500 Free
100 Fly
-Break-
400 IM
200 Free Relay
 
Last Time Out
 
The Mavericks combined for three event wins and 45 total top-5 finishes in last Friday and Saturday's home and season-opening Intermountain Shootout.  The Mavericks were competing against Division I Air Force, BYU and members of the CMU Club team.
 
Although they only scored convincing wins over the club team while falling to the Falcons and Cougars in the series of dual-meet scoring battles, highlights were plentiful for the Mavericks.
 
Senior diver Brittany Dixon won both the 1 and 3-meter competitions and set an NCAA qualifying score of 255.90 points on six dives off the smaller board.  She defeated ten Division I divers in both events.
 
Meanwhile, Torsten Rau claimed the lone win of the men's meet as he raced to a strong time of four minutes, 41.80 seconds in the 500 freestyle to win by more than three seconds.
 
The Mavericks also had four other second place finishers in freshman Davy Brown, sophomore Lane Austin, senior Noah Macomber and the women's 400 free relay team.
 
Brown, an Aspen High School product, clocked a time of 4:38.17 in the women's 400 IM to move into the No. 9 spot in program history for that event.  Austin finished second in the men's 100 back at 50.34 while Lauren White, Natalie Saul, Noel Scott and Maddie Pressler turned in a time of 3:34.54 in the meet-capping relay.
 
Macomber scored 273.25 points on the 1-meter diving board and then took third on the 3-meter on Saturday.
 
The Mavericks also had ten third place finishes, including three from senior butterflyer Pedro Terres Illescas and others by Brown and Rau.
 
RMAC Awards Sweep
 
The Mavericks success in last week's meet was proven even more so on Wednesday as the Mavericks swept all four Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference Athlete of the Week honors.
 
On the men's side, Macomber and Rau were named as the RMAC Diver and Swimmers of the Week, respectively, while Dixon and Brown earned those same honors on the women's side.
 
RMAC leaders
 
Although it is early in the season and not all RMAC teams have competed, the Mavericks are dominating the conference performance lists.  The Maverick women have the top time in all 16 individual swimming and two of the three relay events they competed in at the Intermountain Shootout.  The Maverick men lead in all 19 swimming events.
 
Women
 50 Free- Natalie Saul & Bret Congdon- 24.65
100 Free- Lauren White -52.69
200 Free- Saul- 1:56.56
500 Free- Grace Payton-5:12.41
1650 Free- Robyn Naze- 17:41.01
50 Back- Davy Brown- 27.35
100 Back- Lauren White- 57.76
200 Back- Brown- 2:06.44
50 Breast- Samantha White- 31.04
100 Breast- Samantha White- 1:05.73
200 Breast- Samantha White- 2:23.98
50 Fly- Bella Walters- 26.95
100 Fly- Candice Rosen-58.93
200 Fly- Isabelle Hansson- 2:11.79
200 IM- Brown- 2:09.38
400 IM- Brown- 4:33.17
400 Free Relay- Lauren White, Saul, Noel Scott, Maddie Pressler- 3:34.14
200 Medley Relay- Sarah Fillerup, Samantha White, Candice Rosen, Lauren White- 1:48.88
 
Men
50 Free- Zander Minano- 21.08
100 Free- Noah Vallee- 47.46
200 Free- Torsten Rau- 1:41.29
500 Free- Rau- 4:36.80
1650 Free- Rau- 16:17.20
50 Back- Lane Austin- 23.92
100 Back- Austin- 50.24
200 Back- Austin- 1:54.02
50 Breast- Mahmoud Elgayar- 26.16
100 Breast- Elgayar- 57.35
200 Breast- Elgayar- 2:06.57
50 Fly- Jake Simmons- 23.37
100 Fly- Pedro Terres Illescas- 50.72
200 Fly- Terres Illescas- 1:53.81
200 IM- Matthew Barrett- 1:55.75
400 IM- Jake Simmons- 4:12.42
200 Free Relay- Minano, Vallee, Austin, Elgayar- 1:24.20
400 Free Relay- Austin, Justin Fell, Elgayar, Ethan Fox- 3:08.62
200 Medley Relay- Austin, Elgayar, Terres Illescas, Minano- 1:32.55
 
Mavs' New Head Coach
 
A veteran with nearly 30 years of collegiate coaching experience, Mickey Wender is beginning his tenure as the Mavericks' Head Swimming & Diving and Triathlon teams this year after being announced as the fourth head swimming coach in the program's history in July. 
 
Wender replaced Geoff Hanson, who resigned for a similar position at Division I Southern Illinois.
 
Wender has already racked up more than 400 wins in his 27 years as a collegiate head coach, mostly recently serving at Division I Army West Point, where he coached the Black Knights from 2006-19.  He had also been the head coach at the University of Washington from 1998-2006 after a 1992-98 stint at the University of California, Santa Cruz from 1992-98 and served as an Head Coach for American Samoa at the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing, China.
 
Wender has developed swimmers to qualify for NCAA Division I Championship meets in every event and was named as the Patriot League Swimming Coach of the Year three times at Army West Point, most recently in 2017.  His swimmers have broken all of the existing school records at every school he coached and have earned conference championships in over 50 different events.
 
He has also produced several swimmers who ranked in the Top 100 in the world and has coached swimmers at every U.S. Olympic Trials since 2000.
 
Returning Assistants
 
Although Wender is new to CMU, he will have the aid of some experienced CMU assistants.  Logan Pearsall, who has been named as the CSCAA NCAA Division II Men's Diving Coach of the Year in each of the past two years is back as the team's diving coach for his sixth season and Justin Hastings, a former CMU all-American and school record holder is back from his fourth season on the CMU Coaching staff and played a major role in recruiting for this year's squad.
 
Defending Champs
 
The Mavericks will enter the 2019-20 season as the defending Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference Champions on both the men's and women's side. 
 
The Maverick men broke their own 5-year old championship record for team points, scoring 1,261 to win their third conference crown in program history (2014, 2017).  The Mavericks won 16 individual vents and finished 320 points ahead of runner-up Oklahoma Baptist.
 
Meanwhile, the Maverick women relied on their depth to score 1,019 ½ points to earn their first conference title in program history.  They won just two out of 21 individual events but had a vast number of other high finishes to defeat Oklahoma Baptist and the rest of the 9-team field by an impressive 230 ½ points.
 
Polling No. 1
 
Both Maverick teams were unanimous picks to defend their RMAC titles in 2019-20, according to the conference's preseason coaches' poll, which was announced last Friday morning.  The Maverick women received all eight possible first place votes to take the poll with 64 points.  Dixie State was picked second with 50 points while 2019 runner-up Oklahoma Baptist was tabbed third with 47 ahead of the Colorado School of Mines (43) and the rest of the nine women's teams.
 
In the men's poll, CMU's men received all four possible first place votes to take the poll with a maximum 16 points while 2019 runner-up Oklahoma Baptist was second with 12.  Oklahoma Christian and Mines tied for third with eight ahead of Adams State, re-starting their men's program this year.
 
The nine women's coaches ranked their opposition 1-8 without voting for their own squad while the five men's coaches ranked their opposition 1-4.  Wender's first place votes went to the Dixie State women and Oklahoma Baptist men.
 
Program bests
 
The Mavericks came just short of finishing in the top 10 at last year's NCAA Division II Championships for the first time in program history.  However, the Mavericks did record their best ever finishes in 2019 as the Maverick men finished 11^th while the women took 16^th.
 
About the Pioneers
 
The Pioneers also have a new head coach this year in Alicia Hicken-Franklin, who returned to the Pioneer program after two seasons at her alma mater Minnesota as the Gophers' associate head coach.  Hicken-Franklin had been the Pioneers' associate head coach for 11 previous seasons and was named as CollegeSwimming.com's Assistant Coach of the Year in 2016 helping guide DU to back-to-back Summit League titles before departing for Minneapolis.
 
They got out to a successful start as both teams scored 200 points to sweep the 2019 Denver Relays last Saturday against Wyoming and Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference foes Colorado School of Mines and Adams State.
 
A total of 20 relay events— ten for each gender— were contested.  The Pioneers won 13 of them.
 
2019 NCAA Championship qualifier Josie Valette led the women's team with four relay victories while Cameron Auchinachie, also an NCAA qualifier last year, won six men's events to earn Summit League Swimmer of the Week honors.
 
His 400 free relay leadoff leg split of 44.37 seconds was the fifth fastest time in the country last week.
 
The Pioneers are typically a mid-major power and claimed their sixth consecutive Summit League Championships last year.  Their women scored 1,183 points to break the previous championship record.
 
Both teams then went on to finish 12^th at the CSCAA National Invitational Championships.
 
Auchinachie earned two Division I All-America honors in 2019 finishing 16^th in the 50 free and 11^th in the 100 free.  He was later named as the Summit League Swimmer of the Year as was Valette, who later went on to finish fourth at the French Elite National Championships while qualifying for the 2020 U.S. Olympic Trials.
 
Both Pioneer squads have been picked to defend their Summit League titles again this year as well.
 
The Last Time we Met
 
The Mavericks and Pioneers did not face each other in swimming last year but did contest a diving dual on Jan. 11, 2019 while the Maverick swimmers were competing against Mines in a RMAC dual.  The Maverick men won the diving dual, 28-10 as Ammar Hassan won both events.  Brittany Dixon placed second in both diving events as the Mavericks fall 26-18 in the women's portion of the competition.
 
On Jan. 19, 2018, the full Maverick squad competing against the Pioneers in Denver.  The Pioneers won that men's dual, 150 ½- 92 ½ while their women won 155-84.
 
Road stretch of a home-friendly schedule
 
Saturday's dual begins the Mavs' lone road stretch of the entire season in what is a very home-friendly schedule.  The Mavericks will also be at BYU on Oct. 18 before competing at Western (women only) and Adams State on Oct. 24 and 25, respectively.  They then compete at the Air Force Duals on Nov. 1 before returning home to prepare for the A3 Performance Invitational, which they will host from Nov. 20-24.
 
That meet, which will include lone course time trials on the final day, will be CMU's last of 2019.
 
In 2020, the Mavericks will open with a 2-day home dual against Mines and the Dixie State women on Jan. 10-11 and a Jan. 18 with the Western women.
 
The Mavericks will then host the RMAC Championships for the first time since 2017 from Feb. 12-14 and will have another set of long course time trials on Feb. 15.
 
CMU's lone road trip in 2020 will be to the Mar. 10-14 NCAA Division II National Championships.
 
Up Next
 
Both Maverick teams will be busy throughout October, which will be the heart of the dual-meet season.  The Mavericks will continue action against Division I opposition next Saturday (Oct. 12) at the University of Denver.