TEMPE, Ariz.— All seven Colorado Mesa University triathletes turned in all-America winning performance as the Mavericks matched their best ever finish as a team, taking second in the NCAA Division II portion of the Women's Collegiate Triathlon National Championships on Saturday here at Tempe Town North Lake Park.
The Mavericks had two top-7 finishes from bronze medalist
Shannon Feran and seventh place finisher
Megan Buchanan, both of whom are now Collegiate Triathlon Coaches Association First Team All-Americans.
Feran turned in a time of one hour, seven minutes, 20.6 seconds in the race, which included a 750-meter swim, 20-kiometer draft-legal big segment and 5-k run. Buchanan was clocked in 1:08.21.
Meanwhile, freshman
Nadine Klive finished 11
th to earn second team all-America honors, which go to the eighth through 15
th place finishers.
The Mavs also had four honorable mention all-America performances from
Torin Lackmann,
Natalie Mitchell,
Paloma Suarez Davila and
Josie Williams. Lackmann finished 15
th in 1:09.15.6 while Mitchell and Suarez were just over two seconds apart, taking 17
th and 18
th place, respectively. Mitchell finished in 1:09.47.7 while Suarez was timed in 1:09:49.8.
Williams finished 21
st in 1:10:22.8.
Wingate's Julia Kekkonen claimed the individual title in 1:06:54.5 while Drury's Jayme Vermaas was second in 1:07.08.2 as the only two finishers ahead of Feran.
Lenior-Rhyne then had the next three finishers while adding a ninth-place tally to clinch the team victory while the Mavericks finished ahead of pre-meet No. 1 Wingate and the rest of the field, which featured triathletes from 12 different NCAA Division II teams.
LR finished with 268 points while CMU had 252, six more than Wingate.
The Mavs were also the only school to have all seven athletes earn CTCA All-America honors and have now finished in the top four at each of the last four national championships. They were fourth in 2019 and 2021 and placed second out of five teams in 2018.
Two other Mavericks also competed on the same course earlier in the day during the age-group Sun Devil Triathlon Classic.
Ashlyn Hicken finished sixth overall and second amongst women with a time of 1:11:16.7 while
Abby Croasdell was tenth overall and fourth amongst all women in 1:13:16.6. Croasdell was the top female in the 20-24 age group while Hicken was second in the 19 and under group.
