GRAND JUNCTION, Colo.— Led by individual wins by junior
Torsten Rau in the 500-yard freestyle and senior
Brittany Dixon on the 1-meter diving board, the Colorado Mesa University Maverick swimming and diving teams racked up ten top-3 and 26 top-5 finishes on the second day of the Intermountain Shootout, which wrapped up Saturday here at the El Pomar Natatorium.
The Mavericks recorded 45 top-5 finishes over the two days of battles against Division I Air Force and BYU as well as the CMU Club squad in the opening meet of the season.
The BYU Cougars swept the series of dual-meet team score results as their women defeated Air Force, 273-119 and CMU 293-99. Air Force edged CMU 233-160 while the Maverick varsity squad claimed a 333-28 exhibition win over club squad.
On the men's side, BYU defeated Air Force, 215-177 and CMU by a 250-142 score. Air Force won a 264-129 decision over the Maverick varsity squad, which in turn defeated the club team 333-36.
On Saturday, Dixon completed a weekend sweep of the diving events as she registered an NCAA qualifying score of 255.90 points over six dives off the 1-meter board to better ten Division I divers in the 15-woman field. She had won the 3-meter completion on Friday.
Meanwhile, Rau highlighted the swimming events for CMU taking the 500-yard freestyle in four minutes, 41.80 seconds to win by more than three seconds.
At the end of the session, the CMU women's 400 free relay squad of
Lauren White,
Natalie Saul,
Noel Scott and
Maddie Pressler finished a strong second in 3:34.54. White also teamed with
Samantha White,
Bret Congdon and
Natalie Saul for a third place finish in the 200 free relay (1:37.86), one of eight total third place finishes throughout the day.
The men's 200 free relay squad of
Zander Minano,
Noah Vallee,
Lane Austin and
Mahmoud Elgayar also finished third in 1:24.20.
Pedro Terres Illescas had a pair of third place finishes in the butterfly events. The senior finished the 200 in 1:55.01 and the 100 in 50.82 seconds. Freshman teammate
Alex Bruce finished fourth in the 200 at 1:55.79 and was fourth in the 200 back at 1:55.33, just behind Austin, who was third in 1:55.22.
Elgayar also had a third place individual finish as he finished the 50 breaststroke in 26.16 seconds before taking fourth in the 200 with a clocking of 2:07.77.
Freshman
Davy Brown also followed up her runner-up effort in the 400 IM on Friday evening with two more strong efforts on Saturday. She finished third in the 200 backstroke at 2:07.64 and fourth in the 200 IM at 2:10.58. Sophomore teammate
Sarah Fillerup was just a single one-hundredth behind in the 200 back (2:07.65) and took fourth.
Noah Macomber finished third on the men's 1-meter diving with 269.60 points while
Tanner Belliston was fourth with 263 points.
Samantha White also had fourth place finishes in both the 50 (31.04) and 200 (2:25.18) breaststroke events.
Matthew Barrett (200 IM, 1:56.95),
Lauren White (100 Free, 52.92) also placed fourth while
Isabelle Hansson (200 Butterfly, 2:12.99) was CMU's lone individual fifth place finisher. The Maverick "B" teams also had fifth place finishes in three of the four relay events.
The Mavericks will be back in action next Saturday on the road (Oct. 12) taking on another Division I foe in the University of Denver Pioneers.
