GRAND JUNCTION, Colo. — The Colorado Mesa University women set a Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference Championship record while the Maverick men set a new school mark during the 800-yard freestyle relays, the opening events of the 2023 RMAC Swimming & Diving Championships on Tuesday night in the Mavs' Brownson Arena.
The Mavs then combined to set seven additional NCAA Division II Championship provisional qualifying times in individual time trials at the end of the opening session of the meet, which runs through Saturday night.
The women's relay quartet of
Katerina Matoskova,
Lauren White,
Olivia Hansson and
Lily Borgenheimer combined for a time of seven minutes, 21.77 seconds, obliterating Cal Baptist's 5-year old championship record of 7:27.22 by nearly 5 ½ seconds. In the process, the Mavs won by a commanding 12.27-second margin over runner-up Colorado School of Mines (7:34.04) helping open a 12-point gap in the team standings (58-46) over Oklahoma Christian and the rest of the 8-team women's field.
The RMAC title came in Hansson's first conference championship swim and added to the legendary status of Matsokova, White and Borgenheimer, unquestionably three of the best CMU swimmers in program history. Borgenheimer and White have now won 14 conference crowns apiece while Matoskova, the Mavs' 200 free school-record holder, has claimed five.
The Maverick "B" team of
Ada Qunell,
Ruby Bottai,
Sophia Bains and
Amelia Kinnard won their heat by more than 23 seconds and posted the second fastest overall time of the night (7:26.33) as Qunell posted an improved NCAA "B" cut 200 free split of 1:50.55 (1:49.35-altitude adjusted) to move into third CMU history for that individual discipline.
Minutes later, the Maverick men's quartet of
Kuba Kiszczak,
Ben Sampson,
Matheus Laperriere and
Dejan Urbanek took second in the men's relay posting a time of 6:33.61 (6:28.81-altitude adjusted), nearly six seconds faster than CMU's months-old school-record of 6:34.10 set back in November. However, the Mavericks were out-touched by Oklahoma Christian, which took down both the RMAC Championship and pool records with a time of 6:31.58 in a back-and-forth race.
The Eagles got out to a 2.24-second lead on the opening leg before Sampson cut all but 38 one-hundredths of a second of that lead with a very fast 1:36.29 relay split. Laperriere, the 2021 RMAC Champion in the 200 free, then gave the Mavs a 1.43-second lead with a fine 1:38.01 split of his own before OC's Victor Rosado, the 2022 RMAC Championship Freshman of the Year, closed in 1:35.90 to claim the win for he and the Eagles.
Meanwhile, the Mavs' "B" team of
John Walgast,
Kyle Benjamin,
Jackson Moe and
Jeremy Koch were easy winners of the previous heat, defeating their Eagle counterparts by nearly 12 seconds in 6:40.14. Walgast had an improved NCAA provisional qualifying 200 free split of 1:39.52 (1:38.32-altitude adjusted) to move into ninth in program-history for that discipline.
In the team scoring chase, the Maverick men are just two points behind the Eagles and in second place with 52 points. The Colorado School of Mines is third in the 5-team standings with 44.
In the time trials,
Lane Austin,
Mahmoud Elgayar and
Austin Patterson all set new or improved NCAA provisional qualifying times for the men while
Ellie Wilke and
Maddi Moran did the same in the women's 200 breast.
Felipe D'Orsi and
Mado Elkady also posted NCAA "B" cut times, but were slightly off their November marks.
Austin completed the 100 back in 48.42 seconds (48.32-altitude adjusted) while Elgayar finished the 100 breast in 53.90 seconds (53.80-altitude adjusted). Elkady led the three Maverick men in the 100 free in 44.90 seconds ahead of D'Orsi (45.12) and Patterson (45.30/45.20-altitude adjusted).
Wilke finished in 2:17.44 (2:16.24-altitude adjusted) and moved up a spot to second in CMU history behind Borgenheimer while Moran, a freshman, touched in 2:19.38 (2:18.18-adjusted) to move up two spots to third.
Fifth-year senior
Kelsea Wright also had a season-best of 52.61 (52.51-adjusted) in a women's 100 free time trial while freshman
Juliette Benson got her first conference championship swim, finishing the 100 breast in 1:07.64 (1:06.44-adjusted).
Wednesday's action will begin with preliminary heats of the 100 IM, 50 Free and 1,000 freestyle at 9 a.m. Men's 3-meter diving preliminaries will be held at 1 p.m. with the finals in all of those events as well as the 200 medley relay, getting underway at 5 p.m.
