GRAND JUNCTION, Colo.— The Colorado Mesa University Mavericks got the proverbial red pen out, doing some significant edits to the program, meet and pool records in a fast and record-setting start at the TYR/CMU Invitational swimming and diving meet, which got underway Wednesday evening in the El Pomar Natatorium.
 
The Mavericks won five of the six events contested on the first of four days of the meet while setting four new school records while also taking three pool and four meet records off the board.  They also combined for 16 NCAA Division II Championship provisional qualifying times.
 
In the process, the Maverick women opened a 94-point lead on Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference rival Colorado School of Mines and the rest of the 7-team field, which includes three NCAA Division I squads in Northern Arizona, Wyoming and partial Utah squad.  The CMU women scored 212 points while Mines has 118 to sit just ahead of Northern Arizona (113) and Wyoming (112).
 
The Maverick men are also clinging to a 2-point (190-188) lead over Mines and the rest of the 5-team field, which is more than 100 points behind Mines.
 
The Mavericks broke both the pool and meet records in three of the four relay events and had both their "A" and "B" teams go under the former standards in the night-capping 800-yard freestyle relay, which Division I Wyoming claimed victory in.
 
CMU distance swimmers Olivia Hansson and Jacob Troescher also swept the 1,000 free wins, which was the only individual discipline to be contested on Wednesday.
 
Meanwhile, Ben Sampson took down his own school records in two other individual events as the lead-off leg on both the 200 medley and 800 free relays while Agata Naskret smashed the Mavs' 50 back record as the lead-off in women's 200 medley relay before Ada Qunell was just a single one-hundredth of a second from doing the same to begin the 800 free relay.
 
Naskret, who hails from Poland, got the Mavs rolling quickly, smashing the Mavericks' school-record with a lead-off split of 24.30 seconds while fellow sophomores Maddi Moran, Kiara Borchardt and Elli Williams helped the Mavs turn in a time of 1:39.97 to win and smash the year-old pool, meet and school record of 1:41.73 (1:40.53-altitude adjusted) by 1.76 seconds.  They also easily qualified the Mavs for the national championship meet.
 
Naskret's time was nearly a second faster than the Mavs' former 50 back record of 25.27, set by 23-time all-American Lauren White, who later anchored the Mavs to an 800 free relay record trifecta.  The Maverick fifth-year senior extraordinaire turned in a 1:48.00 200 free relay split as she held off Wyoming's Tara Joyce, as the Mavs won the race in 7:18.97, nearly two seconds faster than the year-old meet, pool and school-record of 7:20.96, which White also anchored.
 
Meanwhile, Qunell gave the Mavs with the early lead, turning in a lead-off split of 1:49.88 (1:48.78-altitude adjusted), just 0.01 seconds off the 200 free school-record of 1:48.87, held by Katerina Matoskova, who swam the third relay leg after Hansson was the second on Wednesday night.
 
Qunell and Naskret, who turned in a split of 1:52.39 as the "B" relay lead-off, also went under the NCAA Championship provisional qualifying standard as the Maverick "A" relay team did as a whole.
 
In between, four Maverick women set NCAA provisional qualifying times as the Mavs took four of the five places to rack up big team points with Hansson leading the way in 10:20.33 (10:08.93-converted).  Meanwhile, Haven Hinkle took second in 10:27.54 (10:16.14-converted) to move up four spots to fourth in program history.
 
Freshman Sydnee O'Neil also slid into Hinkle's former No. 8 spot, finishing third in 10:29.91 (10:18.51-converted) while fellow freshman Melaina Howard took fifth in 10:35.46 (10:24.06-converted), yet another NCAA provisional qualifying time.
 
Amelia Fish and Kyla Babson also recorded top-10 finishes in the timed final event, taking seventh and ninth.
 
The Maverick men were just as fast out of the starting blocks as Sampson turned in a 50 back split of 21.01, while he, Kuba Kiszczak, Dejan Urbanek and Jameson McEnaney broke the pool, meet and school records in the 200 medley relay with a time of 1:26.19.  Sampson's split was well under his CMU record of 21.43 while the relay team went well under the former record trifecta of 1:26.73, which included Sampson, Kiszczak, Urbanek and 2023 CMU graduate Lane Austin, the Mavs' former team captain.
 
Troescher then successfully defended his 1,000 free title in 9:27.85, just off his meet record time of 9:27.33 a year ago as he and teammate Gavin Anderson both set NCAA provisional qualifying times.  Troescher's time will convert to 9:16.45 while Anderson posted a 9:18.92 converted time (9:30.32-actual) to take second.
 
The Mavs also got eighth and ninth place finished from Caleb Dutton and Austin Mondello, respectively, but did temporarily lose the team scoring lead as Mines placed four in the top seven and had eight total scorers while loading up in that event.
 
However, the Mavs would re-gain the team lead in the 800 free relay as both the Mavs' "A" and "B" teams went under the former meet pool and meet records only to be nipped by Wyoming, which set the new standard of 6:29.06, nearly ten seconds faster than last year's meet record time of 6:38.90 and 2.52 seconds quicker than the pool record time of 6:31.58, set at last year's RMAC Championships by Oklahoma Christian.
 
Mines placed a distant third in 6:56.27.
 
Meanwhile, the Maverick "A" squad finished second in an NCAA-qualifying 6:31.69 as Sampson turned in a strong lead-off split of 1:36.62 (1:35.42-converted) to break his own 200 free school and meet record of 1:36.78 from last year.  He and "B" team lead-off Aziz Ghaffari, who turned in a split of 1:36.91 (1:35.71-converted) also set NCAA provisional qualifying times for the 200 free as Ghaffari now ranks second in CMU history for that discipline.
 
Sampson, Kiszczak, Urbanek and McEnaney were on the "A" team while Ghaffari, John Walgast, Jackson Moe and Jeremy Koch combined for a time of 6:36.38 on the "B" team, a mark that was also well under the former meet record.
 
The Mavs also racked up three more NCAA provisional qualifying times in time trials held at the end of the session.
 
Nova Southeastern transfer Luka Samsonov posted such a time of 1:46.63 (1:45.43-converted) in the 200 back, moving into third place on CMU's all-time top 10 performers chart.
 
Maverick veteran Austin Patterson then posted a time of 45.17 seconds (45.07-converted) in the 100 free before Ellie Wilke turned in the Mavs' final NCAA time of the night, swimming the women's 200 breaststroke in 2:20.19 (2:18.99-converted).
 
Thursday's portion of the meet will begin at 10 a.m. with preliminary heats in the 500 free, 200 IM and 50 free.  Diving will begin two hours later at noon while the evening finals session will get underway at 5 p.m., an hour earlier than Wednesday's session.