GRAND JUNCTION, Colo.— The Colorado Mesa University swimming and diving teams combined for six event wins and set another RMAC Championship relay record as both the Maverick men and women hold team-scoring leads through Wednesday, the second of five days of competition at the 2023 Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference Championships which will run through Saturday evening here in the El Pomar Natatorium.
 
The Maverick women won all four events of the day and all have claimed all five of the meet thus far, capping the night with a RMAC Championship record time of one minute, 41.74 seconds in the 200-yard medley relay.  The Mavs also received a title-winning and school-record setting effort from Swedish freshman Olivia Hansson in the 1,000 freestyle, a second straight 200 individual medley title from Lily Borgenheimer.
 
The Mavs then swept each of the top six places in the 50 free as Logan Anderson and Izzy Powers shared the title before Lauren White, Lily Borgenheimer, Kiara Borchardt and Ruby Bottai combined for the relay win.
 
In the process, the CMU women opened up a commanding 334-182 lead over second-place Colorado School of Mines in the team standings.  Oklahoma Christian is third out of eight teams with 159.
 
Meanwhile, the Maverick men received individual titles from Ben Sampson in the 200 IM and Isaiah Cheeks in the 3-meter diving competition as they hold a 317-246 team-scoring lead over Oklahoma Christian despite seeing the men's 200 medley relay "A" team being disqualified for an early take-off at the end of the night.
 
Women's Details

Hansson, who was a part of CMU's RMAC Championship record-setting 800 free relay team on Tuesday night, was just the eighth seed coming into the night but went wire-to-wire in the 1,000 free, powering home to a final time of 10:06.21 (9:54.81-altitude adjusted) from Lane 9 to break teammate Amelia Kinnard's school-record of 9:57.36 from November.  Hansson's mark is also the fastest in Division II this year, bettering Kinnard's.
 
Kinnard also had a solid effort on Wednesday, finishing third in 10:25.09 while freshman Haven Hinkle took fourth in 10:35.06.
 
Borgenheimer then led a 1-2-4-8 finish for the Mavs in the 200 IM, cruising to a time of 2:02.90 to successfully defend her conference title.  Sophomore Sophia Bains took second in 2:04.78 after going 2:04.77 (2:03.57-converted) in the morning preliminary session.  In the process, she moved up a spot to fourth in Maverick history. 
 
Freshman Ada Qunell also set a NCAA "B" cut time of 2:06.23 (2:05.03-converted) to place fourth and take over the No. 5 spot in CMU lore.  Another freshman in Tori Bartusiak was eighth in 2:09.43 while Maddi Moran won the "B" final in 2:09.57, finishing ninth overall.
 
The Mav women then dominated the 50 free as Anderson and Powers both touched in new personal-best times of 23.64 seconds to tie for fourth in Maverick history.  The conference titles were the first individual crowns of each's career although Anderson had been on five winning relay teams in her five years as a Mav while Powers was on the 200 free relay championship quartet last year, her first season at CMU after transferring from Hawai'i.
 
Meanwhile, Ruby Bottai touched third in 23.68 seconds while freshman Elli Williams set an NCAA "B" cut time of 23.78 to place fourth.  Borchardt (23.99) and Emily Moreland (24.09) rounded out the 1-6 sweep that saw the Mavs score 95 team points in one race, more than four competing teams have earned in two complete days.
 
The 200 medley relay squad broke the 5-year old RMAC record of 1:42.37 from Oklahoma Baptist in 2018 and was just off the pool and school-record time of 1:41.73 from this past November during the TYR/CMU Invitational.   White also bettered her 50 back school record with a lead-off time of 25.43 as she won her second relay title of the meet and her 15^th career RMAC crown.
 
Combined with her individual win earlier in the night, Borgenheimer has now won a school-record 16 RMAC titles in her three years at CMU and 21 in her 5-year collegiate career, which started at Minnesota State.
 
Borchardt, a freshman from Eagle River, Alaska, is a first-time RMAC Champion while Bottai has now claimed three relay RMAC titles.
 
The Maverick "B" relay team of Katerina Matoskova, Moran, Anderson and Powers also dominated their heat, posting a time of 1:43.70, second fastest on the night and good for the official ninth place points.

Men's Details

The Maverick men also used their depth to surge into the team lead. 
 
That started in the 1,000 free as Gavin Anderson won his section, swum at the beginning of the night session in 9:29.05 while lowering his NCAA qualifying mark to 9:17.65 with the altitude conversion. 
 
However, Oklahoma Christian's Victor Rosado won the gold medal, coming out of the morning sections, to win the event in 9:15.85, an automatic NCAA qualifying mark.
 
Meanwhile, CMU's Kyle Benjamin finished third overall in 9:30.39, also coming out of the morning session while Jacob Troescher took fourth overall in 9:30.73.
 
The Mavs also have four of the top five finishers in the 200 IM as Sampson, the national leader, won in 1:48.45.  The redshirt sophomore now has a dozen career RMAC titles.
 
Meanwhile fifth-year senior Mahmoud Elgayar claimed the bronze in 1:50.18 after posting a morning preliminary time of 1:50.11 (1:48.91-converted) to move up on the national championship provisional qualifying list.    
 
Kuba Kiszczak also put his name on that list, placing fourth in 1:50.28 after recording a morning preliminary time of 1:49.84 (1:48.64-converted), good enough for the No. 5 spot in program history.  John Walgast also had an improved NCAA "B" cut effort of 1:51.13 (1:49.93-converted) to finish fifth while Jeremy Koch turned in yet another "B" cut mark of 1:52.37 (1:51.17-converted) to win the consolation final as the seventh Maverick to hit the national standard this season.
 
Oklahoma Christian then pulled back some team points as the Eagles took the top four spots in the 50 free, won by Brandon Heredia in a fine time of 19.86 seconds.  However, the Mavericks took the fifth through ninth places in the event to earn some decent team points as well.  Felipe D'Orsi led the CMU group placing fifth in a career-best and improved NCAA provisional qualifying time of 20.48, which also allowed him to move up a spot to ninth in program history.
 
Mado Elkady (20.50), Jackson Moe (20.64) and Andrew Scoggin (20.77) also rounded out the "A" final finish while Lane Austin won the consolation final in an NCAA provisional qualifying time of 20.50 seconds.

The action then moved to the diving well as Cheeks was able to defend his 3-meter title with 567.45 points, sealing the victory on his final dive by 5.20 points over UT Permian Basin's Matthew Lenzo (562.25).  Meanwhile Dawson Wilson took fourth while Josh Thomas was fifth.  They joined exhibition divers Wyatt Hermanson and Devon Gordon in surpassing the NCAA qualifying standard of 460.00 points during the day.  Each of the four new Mavericks will now need a 6-dive qualifying score in a different meet— namely next week's Maverick Last Chance Qualifier— to earn a trip to the national championship site in Indianapolis.
 
Cheeks, the reigning national champion and RMAC Diver of the Year, had booked his trip back in November.
 
Action then returned to swimming as the "A" quartet of Sampson, Elgayar, Urbanek and Austin had an apparent 200 medley relay win, thwarted by the aforementioned disqualification.  The Mavs did get a tenth place overall finish from the "B" team of Koch, Jonsson, D'Orsi and Elkady, which combined for a mark of 1:31.32.
 
Oklahoma Christian won both heats of the men's relay, slicing what was a 115-point deficit after diving to 71 points entering Thursday's action, which will begin with preliminary heats at 9 a.m.  Women's 1-meter diving prelims will begin at 1 p.m. while finals are once again slated for 5 p.m.