GRAND JUNCTION, Colo.— A sweep of the top six places in the men's 1-meter diving competition, three relay wins and two school-record setting times highlighted another strong day for the Colorado Mesa University swimming and diving teams, who extended their overall team leads after the second day of the Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference Championships, which continued Thursday here at the El Pomar Natatorium.
 
Before Ammar Hassan led the diving domination, which accounted for 95 team points alone, the Mavericks also received individual wins from Jake Simmons in the 400-yard individual medley and Pedro Terres Illescas in the 100 butterfly as the Mavericks combined to win six more gold and 15 overall medals throughout the evening.
 
Also setting 32 more NCAA qualifying marks throughout the day, the Maverick men extended their lead to 188 ½ points (569-380 ½) over second-place Colorado School of Mines and the rest of the 5-team field.
 
Meanwhile, the CMU women, who set a pair of school-records on Friday, are on pace to break the championship record and have tallied 570 ½ points, good for a 183 ½-point cushion over Mines and rest of the field.
 
The Mavericks qualified 16 swimmers and all six of their team-scoring divers for the championship finals throughout the preliminary rounds and then got after the business of scoring points and setting records from the start in the evening finals session.
 
In the women's 200 freestyle relay, freshman Bret Congdon, now a 3-event winner in the first half of the conference championships, teamed with juniors Noel Scott and Natalie Saul and another freshman in Lauren White, who would later set an individual school record.  That quartet set a NCAA Division II Championship qualifying and program-record setting time of one minute, 33.82 seconds to win the 200-yard medley relay.  Saul had been on the former record-setting squad, which finished last year's RMAC Championships in 1:34.66.
 
Congdon also set a NCAA provisional qualifying 50-yard lead-off time of 23.71 seconds.
 
The Maverick men, who already had a NCAA qualifying time of 1:20.54 from earlier in the season, were then judged to finish second with a time of 1:21.01 after the Mavericks' "B" squad had won the consolation heat.  Lane Austin also set a 50-free lead-off national qualifying time of 20.63 seconds.
 
In the women's 400 individual medley, freshman Davy Brown and junior Isabelle Hansson took second and third, respectively as both set NCAA "B" cut times.  Brown, who won the 200 IM on Wednesday, touched in 4:30.27 while Hansson finished in 4:32.82.  Junior Grace Payton also made the final and finished seventh in 4:39.89 as the Mavericks scored 55 more points.
 
Simmons then led three Maverick and five overall NCAA provisional qualifiers in the men's event posting a time of 4:01.56 to move into the No. 4 spot of program history.  Nico Tscherner (4:02.63) and Ethan Fox (4:02.74) also eclipsed the NCAA standard of 4:05.42 as they took third and fourth, respectively.  Wednesday night 200 IM winner Matthew Barrett was eighth in 4:09.83.
 
The Maverick women then scored 40 more points in the 100 butterfly as Candice Rosen took fourth in 57.33 seconds ahead of Scott (57.67) and Bella Walters (58.09), who finished sixth and eighth, respectively.
 
The Maverick men then continued their winning ways as Terres Illescas defended his RMAC title in the 100 fly with a NCAA provisional qualifying time of 48.13 seconds.
 
The Maverick women then set two more of those NCAA cut times in the 200 free as White finished second in 1:51.16, breaking Sierra Forbord's school-record in the discipline by 0.07 seconds.  Maddie Pressler finished third in 1:52.09 to move into the third spot in program history while Kennedy Bright took eighth in 1:56.66.
 
Logan Anderson, an exhibition swimmer, had also set an NCAA provisional qualifying time of 1:54.23 in the preliminaries.
 
After a 1-2 finish in the consolation final of the men's 200 free, Maverick junior Justin Fell finished second in the championship final with an NCAA qualifying time of 1:41.22, just off his preliminary round mark of 1:40.87.  Meanwhile, sophomore Jackson Wuthrich was fourth in 1:41.59 after setting an NCAA qualifying time of 1:40.64 to emerge as the top qualifier out of the morning. 
 
Captain Noah Beaver had won the consolation heat in an NCAA qualifying time of 1:41.48 to place ninth overall.  Logan Ellis touched just behind Beaver in the "B" heat and placed tenth overall in 1:42.17.
 
The swimmers then took a break as the attention turned to the diving boards, where Ammar Hassan won his third straight RMAC title on the 1-meter board, scoring 562.80 points.  Noah Macomber (468.40) and Isaiah Cheeks (458.25) also medaled while Tanner Belliston (457.40) and Chandler Livingston (448.85) also set NCAA qualifying point totals.  Noah Luna completed the Maverick 6-pack with 412.35 points.
 
The Mavericks then continued the momentum into the relays as all four CMU squads won their respective heats in the 400 medleys.  Lauren White, Sam White, Rosen and Pressler took the women's championship in 3:47.61 after Sarah Fillerup, Sydney Dolloff-Holt, Scot and Congdon took the "B" heat win in 3:51.83.
 
On the men's side, Austin, Mahmoud Elgayar, Terres Illescas and Noah Vallee won in 3:17.76 after Tscherner, Barrett, Tucker Adams and George Durin had taken the "B" section in 3:22.53.
 
Seven more women's events and six more men's competitions will be contested on Friday before the meet wraps up Saturday.