GRAND JUNCTION, Colo.— Five Colorado Mesa University swimmers will hope to raise their NCAA Division II Championship selection stock as they will travel across the country to Charlotte, North Carolina to compete in the Royal Open on Friday and Saturday.
 
The last chance meet will be hosted by perennial NCAA Division II power Queens University of Charlotte in the Royals' Levine Aquatic Center and will give Mahmoud Elgayar, Sarah Fillerup, Izzy Powers, Andrew Scoggin and Ellie Wilke additional chances at improving their season-best times in hopes of getting into the Mar. 9-12 national meet, which will be in Greensboro, North Carolina.
 
Preliminary round action will begin at 10 a.m. EST (8 a.m. Mountain) in Charlotte each day.  Friday's finals will begin at 5 p.m. EST (3 p.m. Mountain) while Saturday's finals will begin an hour earlier at 4 p.m. EST (2 p.m. Mountain).  The Maverick swimmers will have up to three opportunities to compete in each of their events during the weekend, if they advance to the finals and also choose to do a time trial.
 
Results will be posted on MeetMobile and a daily summary will be posted on www.cmumavericks.com late each evening.
 
Elgayar, a 10-time CSCAA All-American for the Mavericks, is in the best national qualification position of the group heading into the weekend, but still very much on the bubble.  He ranks 18^th in the 100-yard breaststroke and 23^rd in the 200 as of Thursday morning with his season-best times of 54.23 (100) and 2:00.05 (200).  He finished second in last week's Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference Championships in both events.
 
Fillerup, who last qualified for the NCAA meet in 2020, which ended up being canceled after 1 ½ days of competition, ranks 22^nd nationally in the 200 back with a season-best time of 2:00.82.  She also plans to swim the 100 back this weekend and currently ranks 43^rd.  She placed third in the 200 and fifth in the 100 at last week's conference meet.
 
The other three Mavericks competing this weekend are newcomers to the program this season.
 
Powers, a transfer from Division I Hawai'i,  and will need to improve her times significantly.  She ranks 69^th nationally in the 100 free (69^th) and tied for 75^th in the 50 free (23.83).  She finished third in the 50 and fifth in the 100 at the conference meet.
 
Scoggin, a CMU freshman, had a very good RMAC meet placing third in both backstroke events, the events he is entered in for this weekend.  He is currently tied for 21^st nationally in the 100 with his time of 48.11 seconds and stands 30^th in the 200 at 1:47.41.
 
Wilke, another Maverick freshman, ranks 33^rd in the 200 breast after placing second behind teammate Lily Borgenheimer at the conference meet with an altitude-adjusted time of 2:19.69.  She also plans to swim the 100 breast this week and is just inside the nation's top 100 at 1:05.80.
 
In 2021, 17 or 18 men and 20 or 21 women depending on the event made the invited swimmer list for the NCAA Division II Championships, which had some size modifications due to COVID-19 precautions.  In 2020, the men's cutoff was between 21 and 22 while the women's was between 27 and 28.
 
A total of 183 women's swimmers and 157 men's swimmers will be selected to this year's meet under a process explained in Section 2-4 of the NCAA's pre-championship manual.  The selections will be posted on Wednesday (Feb. 23) by 5 p.m. EST (3 p.m. Mountain) on NCAA.com.