GREENSBORO, N.C.— A national-title diving win from redshirt sophomore Isaiah Cheeks, two school-record setting and third place relay finishes and another school-record and fourth-place performance by Lauren White, now the most decorated Maverick athlete in any sport, led the Colorado Mesa University swimming and diving teams to what most would say was their greatest ever NCAA Division II Swimming & Diving Championship night in program history on Friday here at the Greensboro Aquatic Center.
 
Cheeks turned in a score of 537.75 points to win the men's 3-meter diving competition as the Mavericks extended their national-title winning streak in that discipline to four.  Cheeks, a Rangeview High School graduate and Aurora, Colorado native, is just the second Maverick diver to ever win a national crown joining Ammar Hassan, who had won the 2018, 2019 and 2021 championships on both the 1 and 3-meter boards.
 
Cheeks had finished fourth on the 1-meter on Wednesday night. 
 
The 3-meter event was not contested at the 2020 championships as COVID-19 forced the cancelation of that year's meet just 1 ½ days into competition.
 
Cheeks' effort was far from the only story of a magical night for the Mavericks who surged into fifth place in both sets of team standings, nearly guaranteeing their best-ever team finishes.
 
The Mavs also combined for six top-four finishes and set three new school-records throughout the evening.  Thirteen different athletes also combined to win 18 all-America honors, including 15 of the first team variety.
 
Through three days of competition, the Maverick men now have an even 200 team points, 34 more than they scored over four days in 2019 to claim the first of two 11^th place finishes in back-to-back completed championships (2019, 2021).  They scored 108 on Friday alone, raking in 47 in diving as Noah Luna and Tanner Belliston joined Cheeks in the championship final and on the podium.
 
The Maverick women now have 168 points, 71 of which came on Friday in four different events.  With still one more day and six events to go, the Mavericks have already surpassed their previous program-record of 159 national championship points, last year en-route to a current program-best 12^th place finish.
 
Cheeks had come into the diving final in second place after turning a preliminary score of 504.25 points but surpassed afternoon leader Julio Osuna Kelly of Indianapolis to win by 11.6 points.
 
Luna also improved in the finals moving up from fourth place to take third with a career-best score of 507.55 points.  Belliston remained in eighth and scored 454.10 points in the finals after tallying 475.45 in the prelims.
 
All three Mavericks are now 4-time all-Americans.
 
The Mavericks also shined in the swimming pool on Friday as both Maverick 800-yard freestyle relay teams smashed school records to claim third place finishes, which are also the highest ever relay finishes in program history.
 
The Maverick women's quartet of Kelsea Wright, White, Lily Borgenheimer and Katerina Matoskova combined for a time of 7:21.12, a full 2.45 seconds quicker than the former altitude-adjusted school record of 7:23.57, which the same swimmers in a different order had posted to win the Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference title last month.  Wright led things off with a 1:49.74 split before White, who had broken her 100 back record for the third time in 24 hours, turned in a second leg split of 1:49.42.  Borgenheimer (1:51.48) and Matoskova (1:50.48) also posted fine times after earning individual all-America honors with eighth place finishes in earlier events.
 
Wright now has seven career all-America honors, including two this week.  White, who took fourth in the 100 backstroke, now has a CMU all-sport record of 14, while Borgenheimer claimed her fourth and fifth of the week and her tenth and 11th of her 2-year CMU career.  She also earned three as a freshman and sophomore at Minnesota State.
 
Matoskova has now earned six career all-America honors.
 
Meanwhile, the Maverick men's quartet of Matheus Laperriere, Kuba Kiszczak, Dejan Urbanek and Ben Sampson cruised to a time of 6:29.29 to take one of the oldest Maverick records off the board.  Three of the four are true or redshirt freshman.
 
Laperriere, the old man of the group as a redshirt sophomore, posted a lead-off split of 1:37.06, just 0.63 seconds off his school-record, before Kiszczak cruised to a 1:36.39 split en-route to his first career all-America honor.  Urbanek, who like Kiszczak is a true freshman, then turned in a 1:38.32 split before Sampson brought the Mavericks home in 1:37.52.
 
Laperriere now has two career all-America honors while Urbanek has earned four this week.  Sampson has collected six this week and now set five new school-records while matching another during the national meet.
 
Earlier, Sampson turned in a time of 46.38 seconds to take fourth in the 100 back, just 0.02 off his school-record, which had been the fastest-ever time by an American Division II swimmer until tonight.  However, that honor now belongs to Finn Howard of Queens, who won the title in 45.82 seconds.  Two foreign-born Drury swimmers were second and third.
 
The Maverick women, who were represented in the championship final in four of the five events held on Friday, got things rolling from the start as Matoskova placed eighth in the 500 free, touching in 4:56.18 after finishing the preliminaries in 4:55.15.  Amelia Kinnard also raced in the earlier consolation final and finished 15^th overall in 5:00.07 to earn her first career all-America honor as a second-team performer.
 
White then put up a time of 53.90 seconds to take fourth in the 100 back, good for 15 more team points.  That broke her own-school record of 54.06, which she had turned in during the morning.  The Golden, Colorado native also had lowered her own Maverick standard as the lead-off leg on CMU's ninth place 400 medley relay team on Friday.
 
Sampson then matched White's fourth place effort before Borgenheimer took eighth in the 100 breaststroke at 1:02.18.  She was slightly quicker (1:01.95) in the prelims and now has three individual top-8 finishes in as many nights.
 
The Maverick men also scored in the 100 breast as Mahmoud Elgayar claimed his third all-America plaudit of the week and 13^th of his career with a 12^th place finish.  He posted a season-best time of 53.94 seconds to do so.
 
Urbanek followed that up with a consolation final win in the 200 butterfly.  He won the heat by more than a second, touching in a career-best 1:45.39 to take ninth place overall.
 
The Mavericks divers and relay quartets then closed out the night.
 
The final 11 events (6 women's, 5 men's) of the meet will be contested on Saturday.  Action begins with morning preliminary swimming heats at 10 a.m. EST (8 a.m. Mountain).  Women's 1-meter diving preliminaries begin at 2 p.m. EST (Noon Mountain) before the final session begins at 6 p.m. EST (4 p.m. Mountain).  The Mavs will be represented in all eleven and have the top seeds in the men's 200 back (Sampson) and women's 200 breast (Borgenheimer).