GRAND JUNCTION, Colo.— The Colorado Mesa University Swimming & Diving Teams will hit the water for their first meet of the regular season, starting Friday in the El Pomar Natatorium. The Mavericks will host NCAA Division I foes Air Force, BYU as well as the CMU Club team for the 2-day Intermountain Shootout, which will be contested for tenth consecutive year.
Friday's action will commence at 5 p.m. while Saturday's session will get underway at 10:30 a.m.
A basic live stream (natural sound only) of the swimming events can be
accessed here and at the link above.
Live results will also be available throughout the meet.
Meet details
A total of 42 events, 21 for each gender, will be contested, including several irregular events such as the 50-yard breaststroke and butterfly and the 100 individual medley.
Twenty total events will be contested on Friday, starting with the 200 medley relay. Saturday's session will begin and end with the 200 and 400 free relays, respectively.
Both the 1 and 3-meter diving boards will be used as well as the divers will contest 6-dive events.
A complete schedule can be seen here on the
meet information packet.
Scoring
Although the four teams will compete in the various heats, scoring will be separated in a series of head-to-head dual meets using the NCAA's dual-meet scoring format (9-4-3-2-1-0 for individual events, 11-4-2-0 for relays). Teams can only score three individuals and two relays in each event and individual athletes are limited to scoring in seven total events, five of which can be individual.
Mavs' New Head Coach
A veteran with nearly 30 years of collegiate coaching experience, Michael "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 events 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.
This year's Preseason RMAC Coaches' Poll will be released on Friday.
Returning Leaders
The Maverick men will have four of the top seven individual scorers from last year's RMAC Championships back this year.
Logan Ellis (69),
Torsten Rau (63),
Mahmoud Elgayar (57) and
Lane Austin (56 ½) are all included in that group.
The Maverick men also return 4-time NCAA Division II National Diving Champion
Ammar Hassan, one of seven returning all-Americans to what should be a potent lineup across the board.
Fellow all-America divers
Noah Macomber and
Chandler Livingston also return as does first team swimming all-American
Pedro Terres Illescas, the national runner-up in the 200 fly. Ellis, Rau, Elgayar and
Zander Minano also earned second team all-America honors last year.
The Maverick women also appear to have a strong lineup returning a good chunk of their RMAC title-winning squad. Five different returning swimmers scored more than 40 points at last year's RMAC Championships, including junior distance freestyle specialist
Isabelle Hansson, who tallied 66, and 2018-19 RMAC Freshman of the Year
Robyn Naze.
They will be joined by relay all-Americans
Kennedy Bright,
Grace Payton,
Maddie Pressler,
Natalie Saul and
Samantha White.
On the diving board, 4-time all-American
Brittany Dixon is back for her senior season.
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.
Early start
Although this weekend's meet is the first official team meet of the season, a handful of Maverick distance swimmers got an early start to the season competing in the Horsetooth Open Water Swim last month in Fort Collins, Colorado.
Torsten Rau won that 2.4-mile event by nearly two minutes with a time of 50 minutes, 48 seconds. Teammate
Logan Ellis was fifth overall in 53:57 while
Robyn Naze was tenth overall and the fourth woman to finish with her time of 54:55.
About the Falcons
The Air Force men took fourth at last year's Western Athletic Conference Championships. The Falcons had 16 top 3 finishes and set six NCAA B cut times at the meet, including a school-record from now sophomore Isaac Gwin in the 100 back, who is expected to swim that event and four other individual events this weekend.
Meanwhile, the Falcon women placed tenth at the Mountain West Conference Championships and had two all-conference honorees. One of those —Kylie Stronko— is back for her junior season and is entered in five events for this weekend.
About the Cougars
The BYU men finished third while the women took fourth at last year's Mountain Pacific Sports Federation Championships.
Several swimmers set NCAA B-Cut times but none qualified for the NCAA Division I Championships.
However, Gwen Gustafson was named as the MPSF Freshman of the Year and is and expected to swim in Grand Junction this weekend. She is entered in the 50 and 100 free and fly events.
The Cougars competed against rival Utah in a non-scored relay exhibition meet last weekend winning all three mixed gender events against the Utes.
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.
