GRAND JUNCTION, Colo.— The Colorado Mesa University swimming and diving teams will look to continue their domination of Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference foes while gunning to take down the host Division I United States Air Force Academy when they head to the Falcons' Cadet Natatorium for a Friday evening triangular meet.
 
The Mavericks will tangle with the host Falcons and conference rival Colorado School of Mines, starting at 5 p.m.
 
Last Time Out
 
The nation's tenth-ranked Maverick women won their first two RMAC duals of the season last week on the road in pool-record setting and dominating fashion.  They defeated Western Colorado 196-95 on Thursday in Gunnison and then knocked off Adams State, 137-53 on Friday in Alamosa.  The Mavericks won both diving events at Western Colorado and had the best time in all swimming events of that meet, which saw them set six pool records.
 
Then then posted the quickest time in all 11 events against the Grizzlies setting three more pool records.
 
Meanwhile, CMU's men, ranked 11^th nationally, claimed their first dual meet win of the season with a 144-29 victory at Adams State.  They set new Plachy Hall pool records in both the 200-yard medley and freestyle relays and had individual record-setting efforts from Torsten Rau in the 1,000 free and Matthew Barrett in the 100 breast in between.
 
They did not compete on Thursday as Western does not have a men's program.
 
Diving was not contested in Friday's dual against Adams State.
 
CMU exhibitioned the last few events of both duals to prevent the scores from being even more lopsided.
 
Streaking
 
The Mavericks women have now won 18 straight duals against RMAC foes in a winning streak which has now spanned into five seasons.  They won all of their duals against RMAC opposition in each of the last three seasons.
 
In 2018-19, they went 5-0 defeating the Colorado School of Mines and Western twice each as well as winning at Adams State.  They went 6-0 against other RMAC foes in 2017-18 and were 4-0 against them in 2016-17.  They also won their last conference dual of the 2015-16 season at home to Western.
 
CMU's last RMAC dual meet defeat was on Jan. 12, 2016 to then associate conference member Lindenwood.
 
The Mavericks have four more duals against RMAC foes on the schedule this year, including Friday's contest against Mines.
 
The Maverick men have also gone unbeaten by RMAC foes since facing Lindenwood on that day but as sponsorship of men's swimming and diving in the RMAC, especially in Colorado, has been sporadic, they have faced RMAC foes just six times since.  Five of those match-ups have come against Mines.
 
In 2016-17, CMU's men defeated Mines in their lone RMAC dual before beating them twice in 2017-18 and twice again last season.
 
Meet details
 
Friday's meet will be contested in the 16-event format.  An order of events for the meet can be seen below.
 
200 medley relay
1000 free
200 free
100 back
100 breast
200 fly
50 free
Diving break
100 free 
200 back
200 breast
500 free
100 fly
Diving break
200 IM
400 free relay
 
Without their top divers
 
The Mavericks will be without the services of their top divers for Friday's triangular as CMU Head Diving Coach Logan Pearsall is instead taking four all-America divers to this weekend's Atlantic 10 Classic in Geneva, Ohio for a sneak peek at the site of this year's NCAA Division II Championships.  However, the Mavericks will still have several other divers compete at Air Force as well, including sophomore Ali Lange who reached the NCAA qualifying standard of 390 points with her 11-dive total score of 396.95 in last Thursday's dual at Western Colorado. 
 
About the Falcons
 
Friday's meet will mark the second time this season that the Mavericks will have faced Air Force.  The Falcons came to Grand Junction for the Oct. 4 and 5 season-opening Intermountain Shootout, which also included BYU and the CMU Club Team.
 
The Falcon women went 1-1 at that meet while defeating the Mavericks, 233-160 and have since placed fifth at the Rice Invitational while dropping their first two Mountain West Conference duals to Wyoming and Colorado State.  They also beat Northern Arizona, 146-96 in non-conference action and have a 2-3 overall record in duals.
 
Meanwhile, the Falcon men are 1-3 having dropped duals against Wyoming and Denver since defeating the Mavericks, 264-129 at the Intermountain Shootout, where they also were beaten 215-177 by BYU.
 
About the Orediggers
 
The Colorado School of Mines will enter Friday's meet with a 2-1 dual meet record.  They won 166-22 at Adams State on Saturday after falling to Division I Wyoming, 111 ½-93 ½ in their home opener on Friday in Golden.  They also defeated Truman State in an Oct. 11 neutral-site match-up in Colorado Springs on the eve of the Big Cat Relays, where they finished second to the Bulldogs.  They also finished third at the season-opening Denver Relays, which was similarly a mixture of traditional and non-traditional relay events.
 
The Oredigger women are 1-2 and have a similar set of results although they were also defeated by Truman State in the Oct. 11 dual.  They defeated Adams State 134-68 on Saturday.
 
RMAC leaders
 
Although it is young in the season, the Mavericks are dominating the conference performance lists as reported to either CollegeSwimming.com or to the NCAA through USA Swimming. The Maverick women have the top time in 13 different individual swimming and the four relay events that they have competed in this season.
 
Meanwhile, the Maverick men have the top time in all but one of the 17 different individual swimming and four relay events they have competed in this season.  In the 100 free, the lone event they do not lead, the Mavericks have five of the top six and eight of the top 10 performers thus far.
 
Here is a listing of the Mavericks' conference leaders.
 
Women
 
100 Free- Lauren White -52.69
500 Free- Grace Payton-5:12.41
1000 Free- Isabelle Hansson- 10:37.51
1650 Free- Robyn Naze- 17:41.01
50 Back- Davy Brown- 27.35
100 Back- Lauren White- 57.69
200 Back- Brown- 2:05.31*
50 Breast- Samantha White- 31.04
100 Breast- Samantha White- 1:05.73
100 Fly- Candice Rosen-58.93
200 Fly- Isabelle Hansson- 2:10.82*
200 IM- Brown- 2:09.38
400 IM- Brown- 4:33.17
200 Free Relay- Lauren White, Samantha White, Bret Congdon, Natalie Saul- 1:37.86
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
400 Medley Relay- Davy Brown, Samantha White, Candice Rosen, Lauren White- 4:00.32
 
Men
 
50 Free- Zander Minano- 21.08
200 Free- Torsten Rau- 1:41.29
500 Free- Rau- 4:36.80
100 Free- Rau- 9:31.82
1650 Free- Rau- 16:17.20
50 Back- Lane Austin- 23.82
100 Back- Austin- 50.24
200 Back- Rau- 1:51.43
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, Noah 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
400 Medley Relay- Austin, Elgayar, Terres Illescas, Vallee- 3:25.88
 
*- Denotes time set in Thursday's dual at Western Colorado.  All times are altitude-adjusted
 
The only swimming qualifier
 
Maverick junior Torsten Rau is the only RMAC swimmer to have set a NCAA Division II Championship qualifying cut time thus far in the young season.  His altitude-adjusted mark of 9:31.82 in the 1000-yard freestyle ranks him ninth nationally.
 
Rau leads the RMAC by 14.31 seconds in that event and is the top RMAC swimmer in five individual events this season. 
 
Diving Qualifiers
 
The Mavericks also have four divers who have set NCAA Championship qualifying standards this season in Ammar Hassan and Noah Macomber on the men's side and Brittany Dixon and Ali Lange on the women's.
 
Mavs' New Head Coach
 
A veteran with nearly 30 years of collegiate coaching experience, Mickey Wender is beginning his tenure as the leader of Mavericks' Head Swimming & Diving and Triathlon programs this year after being announced as the fourth head swimming coach in the program's history in July. 
 
He picked up his first three dual meet wins as the Mavericks' coach last week after replacing Geoff Hanson, who resigned in order to take a similar position at Division I Southern Illinois in May.
 
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 are competing in 2019-20 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.
 
National Poll
 
The Mavericks debuted in the top 10 of this year's CSCAA/TYR Division II Preseason Top 25 Coaches' Poll, which was announced earlier this month.  Checking in tenth with 105 points in the poll, the Mavericks are the only RMAC team in the top 25 although Oklahoma Baptist received seven points to fall just three spots out of a top 25 spot.
 
Road stretch of a home-friendly schedule
 
This week's meet wraps up CMU's lone road stretch of the entire season in what is a very home friendly schedule overall.  The Mavericks have already paid Division I Denver and BYU visits before beginning the conference slate last week.  After this meet, the Mavericks will return home to prepare for the A3 Performance Invitational, which they will host from Nov. 20-24.
 
That meet, which will include long 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 contest re-match with the Western women.
 
The Mavericks will then host the RMAC Championships for the first time since 2017 from Feb. 12-15 and will have another set of long course time trials on Feb. 16.
 
CMU's lone road trip in 2020 will be to the Mar. 10-14 NCAA Division II National Championships.
 
Up Next
 
The Mavericks will have more than two weeks off of competitive swimming as they train and taper for the A3 Performance Invitational, which begins Nov. 20.