GRAND JUNCTION, Colo.— For the third time in four meets, the highly-ranked NCAA Division II Colorado Mesa University swimming & diving teams will take on NCAA Division I opposition when the Mavericks travel to Laramie, Wyoming to face the University of Wyoming in an inter-divisional dual meet on Friday afternoon.
 
The 16-event format dual against the Cowboys and Cowgirls in the Laramie High School pool will get underway with diving competition at noon with swimming events to follow, starting at 3 p.m.
 
There will be no live coverage provided by Wyoming, but a recap and results will be posted on www.cmumavericks.com on Friday evening.
 
A look at the match-ups
 
The Maverick women are ranked second in the preseason edition of the CSCAA's NCAA Division II Top 25 Dual-Meet poll and hold a strong 4-1 record in duals earlier this season, including wins over Division I foes Air Force and BYU as well as Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference and Division II foes CSU Pueblo and the Colorado School of Mines.
 
CMU's men are ranked third in the national poll and have a 2-2 record with wins over Air Force and Mines to their credit.
 
Wyoming's teams have also enjoyed strong seasons to date.  The Cowgirls are 3-0 with wins over Colorado State, Air Force and Mines.  The Cowboys are 2-0 and have defeated Air Force and Mines, just like the Mavs.
 
Meet Format
 
The event schedule is listed below.  Scoring will be done on a 9-4-3-2-1 basis for the individual events and 11-4-2 for the relay events with a limit of three scoring individuals and two scoring relays per school.
 
Individual swimmers are limited to scoring in four total and three individual events.
 
Event Schedule
 
Diving (Noon Start)
1-meter (6 dives)
3-meter (6 dives)

Swimming (3 p.m. Start)
200 Medley Relay
1000 Free
200 Free
100 Back
100 Breast
200 Fly
50 Free
BREAK
100 Free
200 Back
200 Breast
500 Free
100 Fly
BREAK
400 IM
400 Free Relay
 
Last Time Out
 
The Mavericks were off last weekend after extending long Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference dual meet winning streaks on Oct. 21 over Mines in Golden, Colorado.
 
The Mavericks had the fastest time in 19 of the 22 total events in the swimming-only dual that featured 11 events for each gender.
 
The Maverick women won all nine events before exhibitioning all of their swimmers en-route to a 121-79 win over the national poll No. 22 Orediggers.  The Mavs have now won 34 consecutive RMAC duals in a streak that dates back nearly eight full years.
 
Meanwhile, the Maverick men won six of the first nine events and like the women exhibitioned all of their swimmers in the final two while posting a 113-89 win over the 22^nd-ranked Orediggers.  CMU's men have now won 13 consecutive RMAC duals since the start of the 2016-17 season.
 
The Maverick men have no won 17 straight duals against the Orediggers while the women have claimed 13 straight dual decisions in the rivalry.

For a complete recap of the Mines dual, click here.
 
Pool Records
 
Three Mavs set new CSM Natatorium records in the Oct. 21 dual at Mines.
 
Ben Sampson broke the men's 100-yard backstroke mark as part of the Mavs' meet-starting 400 medley relay winning team.  He posted a split of 48.93 seconds taking Mines' Jerry Birnbaum's former pool record of 50.63 seconds off the board by a full 1.7 seconds.
 
Meanwhile, Agata Naskret set the women's 100 back record on two occasions, setting a time of 56.82 seconds as the leadoff on the 400 medley relay team.  She then won 100 back in 56.46 seconds, well under the former pool record of 57.26, set in 2016-17 by former Maverick great Mary Saiz.
 
Later in the day, Benedict Nagy broke the 200 IM record with a time of 2:108.70, going under the former mark of 2:09.54, set by Colorado State's Erin Dawson just over a year prior on Oct. 15, 2022.
 
Triple-winners
 
Ben Sampson and Olivia Hansson both went 3-for-3 in event wins during the dual at Mines.  Sampson  took the 400 medley relay, 50 free and 200 IM and swam in five other events as an exhibition swimmer during a busy and productive day that helped him earn his second RMAC Swimmer of the Week honor just days later on Oct. 25.
 
Meanwhile, Hansson claimed victory in the 200, 500 and 1000 free events.
 
In the polls
 
Although the Mavericks were off last week, they did receive some good news in the pre-season edition of the CSCAA's NCAA Division II Top 25 Dual-Meet polls, released in October.  The Maverick women were tabbed second behind only defending national champion Nova Southeastern while the CMU men were picked third in the polls, which were announced last Friday (Oct. 13).
 
The poll committees, consisting of Division II coaches, assesses, and ranks the nation's top 25 dual meet teams in monthly polls.  Their evaluation considers head-to-head dual meet outcomes, performances since the last rankings, season-long performances, dual meet records, roster changes (such as injuries), and data from the SwimCloud Simulator. It is important to note that the poll's objective is not to predict the top finishers in a championship meet format.
 
The Maverick women received 243 points in the poll, just one fewer than top-ranked Nova Southeastern.  Indianapolis (232), Drury (221) and Tampa (220) round out the top five of the pre-season poll.
 
The Mavs are also one of the four Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference squads in the top 25 oof the poll with affiliate members Simon Fraser and Oklahoma Christian holding down the No. 13 and 18 spots while Mines is ranked 22^nd.
 
Indianapolis took the top spot in the men's poll with 249 points after winning last year's national title.  McKendree is ranked second at 235 while the Mavs received 223 points, one more than fourth-ranked Drury.  Tampa rounds out the top five with 208.
 
11^th-ranked Oklahoma Christian, No. 17 Simon Fraser and No. 22 Mines also represent the RMAC in the top 25 while UT-Permian Basin is the third of eight teams in the also receiving votes category.
 
The next set of monthly rankings are due to be released on Friday, Nov. 17 during the CMU TYR Invitational.
 
No. 1 Spots
 
The Mavericks have posted some quick times in their opening two meets and lead the Division II top-times report in impressive six different events, four seven non-championship disciplines and a relay according to the early-season NCAA Top Times Reports as of Wednesday morning.
 
The listing of the Mavs' national leaders with their times (altitude-adjusted when applicable) to date include:
 
Women
50 Breast*- Maddi Moran (29.66)
50 Fly*- Kiara Borchardt (25.86)
400 Free Relay (3:29.88)
 
Men
50 Fly*- Kuba Kiszczak (22.40)
100 IM*- Ben Sampson (50.65)
400 IM- Sampson (3:52.48)
 
*-Non Championship Event
 
All-American List
 
The Mavericks roster or returning all-Americans is quite lengthy and impressive.
 
Eighteen (10 men, 8 women) of the 27 Mavericks who earned a combined 80 CSCAA All-America honors in 2023 return to this year's lineup.  The returning group earned a combined total of 55 (30 men's 25 women's) all-America honors, which go to the top 16 finishers in each event at the national championships, last season.  The top eight finishers earn first team honors while the ninth through 16^th place finishers are Second Team/Honorable Mention selections.
 
Here's a list of CMU's returning all-Americans along with the number of honors each received in 2023 and the total number in their career.
 
Women
Sophia Bains (1/1)
Kiara Borchardt (3/3)
Olivia Hansson (2/2)
Katerina Matoskova (5/11)
Maddi Moran (1/1)
Izzy Powers (2/2)
Ada Qunell (4/4)
Lauren White (7/23)
 
Men
Isaiah Cheeks (2/6)
Mado Elkady (3/4)
Wyatt Hermanson (2/2)
Kuba Kiszczak (5/7)
Matheus Laperriere (4/7)
Jackson Moe (1/1)
Ben Sampson (7/14)
Andrew Scoggin (1/1)
Dejan Urbanek (4/8)
Dawson Wilson (2/2)
 
Site Change, Now at Home
 
In October, the Mavericks  recently learned that the site of this year's RMAC Championships has been moved to Grand Junction and the Mavs' El Pomar Natatorium.  The meet had originally been scheduled to be held in Lenexa, Kansas but was moved after a determination of the RMAC Swimming and Diving Athletic Administrators Council in the best interest of the league's swimming and diving student-athletes.
 
The Mavericks and CMU have hosted the last four and ten previous RMAC Championships and will now do so again over five days from Feb. 13-17, 2024.
 
Diving back in
 
Friday's dual with Wyoming will mark the first time in nearly four weeks that the Maverick divers will have had a chance to compete and will be their first "normal" meet in more than a month.
 
The Mavs have been off for the previous three weekends as neither the swimmers competed during the weeks ending Oct. 14 and Oct. 28.   No diving events were contested during the dual with Mines on Oct. 21.
 
CMU divers dove contested just two competitive times during a team diving "relay" event at the Denver Relays on Oct. 7.
 
They did get to compete on both the 1 and 3-meter boards during the Intermountain Shootout on Sept. 29-30 in CMU's last individual diving meet.
 
Series Histories
 
The Maverick men are 0-4 all-time against Wyoming in duals.  They fell by just 11 points (154 ½-143 ½) in a 2022-23 season match-up in Grand Junction on Oct. 22.
 
Meanwhile, the CMU women are also 0-4 all-time against Wyoming, dropping a 12-point (156-144) home decision to the Cowgirls on the same date. 
 
The other three match-ups have been held in the state of Wyoming, including two in Laramie, where CMU last visited on Nov. 5, 2021.
 
About the Cowboys & Cowgirls
 
As mentioned earlier in this preview, Head Coach Dave Denniston's squads have enjoyed a successful season so far. 
 
The Cowgirls defeated arch-rival Colorado State, by a 171-129 score on Oct. 6 in Laramie, snapping a streak of 23 consecutive Ram victories.  They clinched the dual with two events to go.  They then defeated Air Force by a 169-131 score at the academy on Oct. 21 before returning home to claim a 137-81 win over Mines last Saturday.
 
Meanwhile, the Cowboys defeated Air Force, 191-109 on the road before beating Mines, 138-82 last week.
 
The two Wyoming units combined to win all but four races in the dual against Mines and saw them go 1-2 in eight of them.  They also had four 1-2-3 finishes and a pair of 1-4 sweeps.
 
Carly Palmer won a pair of individual women's races against Mines while Heidi Billings won the 200 back and a relay for the Cowgirls.  Meanwhile, Quinn Cynor paced the Cowboys with three first-place finishes in the 200 fly, 100 IM and on the 200 free relay team.
 
The Cowboys finished fourth at last year's Western Athletic Conference Championships with 545 ½ points a week after the Cowgirls took third at the Mountain West Championships with 937 points.
 
Up Next
 
The Mavs will be off again next weekend before hosting Wyoming and five other teams during the TYR CMU Invitational, which will run Nov. 15-18 in the Mavs' El Pomar Natatorium in Grand Junction.