COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo.— The Colorado Mesa University swimming and diving teams combined to collect five major awards and earn 119 total All-Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference certificates for the recently completed and record-setting 2021-22 season.
 
Ben Sampson was named as the RMAC Men's Swimmer of the Year while Isaiah Cheeks was tabbed as the Men's Diver of the Year.  Lily Borgenheimer was tabbed as the Co-Women's Swimmer of the Year while Jolynn Harris was selected as the Women's Diver of the Year.  Kyra Apodaca also shared RMAC Freshman of the Year honors on the women's side.
 
The major awards, including the RMAC Coach of the Year awards, were selected by a vote of the conference's head coaches following the recently completed NCAA Division II Championships in Greensboro, North Carolina.
 
The All-RMAC honors were bestowed based on individual and relay finishes at the Feb. 9-12 RMAC Championships, which CMU hosted and dominated.  The top two finishers in each individual event as well as the members of the winning relay teams were selected as first team All-RMAC performers.  The third and fourth place finishers in individual events and the second place relay team members earned second team plaudits.
 
The Mavericks' total of 119 All-RMAC honors was 32 more than the rest of the conference received combined (87).  Oklahoma Christian had the second most honors with 50.
 
The Maverick women combined to win 19 of the 21 events at the RMAC Championships, including all five relays.  In the process, they scored 1,323 ½ team points to shatter their own championship record of 1,171 ½ that they had set in 2020.  The Mavericks won the meet by 548 points over the Colorado School of Mines and collected their fourth straight crown.
 
Led by Borgenheimer, who became the first CMU swimmer to ever win a national championship, the Maverick women then went on to finish fifth at the NCAA Division II Championships with a program-record 241 team points.  That total was 82 points higher than they had scored in 2021, when they had finished a previous program-best 12^th.
 
The CMU men also had a record-setting effort at the national meet, scoring 221 team points to take sixth.   Their best previous finish was 11^th in 2019 and 2021.
 
Cheeks won the 3-meter diving national crown while Sampson finished second in the 200-yard backstroke as part of a record-setting week, which saw him set the new Maverick standard in six different disciplines, including three relays.
 
At the RMAC meet, the Maverick men won 11 events, including four relays to easily win their fourth straight and sixth overall RMAC team title with a score of 1,225 points, 350 ½ more than Mines.
 
The Maverick women racked up 45 First Team and 63 total All-RMAC honors while the men accumulated 35 first team and 56 total awards.
 
Borgenheimer and Sampson were amongst the group of four Mavericks that earned the maximum number of seven All-RMAC honors.
 
Borgenheimer, a 7-event conference champion in 2022, swept each of her four individual events at the conference meet, setting new RMAC Championship records in both the 100 breaststroke and 200 IM, while swimming legs on the Mavs' winning 200 medley, 400 medley and 800 freestyle relay teams.  She was also named as the RMAC Championship Swimmer of the Meet after scoring 80 points in her four individual events.
 
The redshirt junior out of Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin native then went on to reach the championship final in each of her four individual events at the NCAA Division II National Championships, punctuating the week with a national-title winning effort in the 200 breaststroke.
 
Sampson, a redshirt freshman from Arvada, Colorado, won five RMAC titles and five First Team All-RMAC honors, while setting the RMAC Championship records in both backstroke distances.  He also led off the Mavericks' winning 200 medley, 200 free and 400 medley relay teams and helped the Mavs place second in the 800 free relay.  He also took third in the 200 IM.
 
He then went on to earn seven all-America honors taking second in the 200 back, the highest ever finish for a Maverick men's swimmer at the NCAA Championships.  His time of 1:41.53 in that event ranks him third in NCAA Division II history.
 
CMU's other 7-event All-RMAC performers included Davy Brown and Lauren White.
 
On the diving side, Cheeks swept both the 1 and 3-meter titles at the RMAC Championships in his first meet of the season.  He set career-bests of 514.35 (1m) and 554.49 (3m) points to do so and was named a the RMAC Diver of the Meet.  The redshirt sophomore from Aurora, Colorado, then went on to win the national title on the 3-meter board after taking fourth in the 1-meter competition garnering first team all-America honors in both.
 
Harris also reached the championship final in both diving events at the national meet, placing seventh on the 1-meter and eighth on the 3-meter.  She had won the 3-meter title at the RMAC Championships and placed second on the 1-meter behind teammate Ali Lange, who she shared RMAC Championship Diver of the Meet honors with.  The redshirt junior from Des Moines, Iowa, also earned three RMAC Diver of the Week honors this season while splitting training time with wrestling, a sport she also qualified for the national championships in this winter.
 
Apodaca, who hails from Sugar Land, Texas, took third behind Harris and Lange on both diving boards at the RMAC Championships and then went on to qualify for the NCAA Championships.  She finished ninth on the 3-meter and 15^th on the 1-meter at the national meet earning second team all-America honors.