GRAND JUNCTION, Colo.— If the old saying that winning is fun, the Colorado Mesa University swimming and diving team had an absolute blast on Thursday night, the third of five days at the Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference Championships, which continue through Saturday here at the El Pomar Natatorium.
 
The Maverick women won all five events of the night as freshman Kiara Borchardt, fifth-year senior Lily Borgenheimer and redshirt sophomore Katerina Matoskova all won individual events before teaming up with another freshman in Olivia Hansson to take the final event of the evening in a 400-yard medley RMAC Championship and school-record time.
 
Sophomore diver Kyra Apodaca also claimed victory on the 1-meter board after setting a pool record in the afternoon preliminary events.
 
The CMU men also won two of the four events contested on the night as Ben Sampson and Dejan Urbanek took the 200 individual medley and 100 butterfly events, respectively.
 
The Mavs also used their depth on both sides to open up large leads in the team standings.
 
CMU's women, ranked second nationally, have now won all 11 events contested so far and lead the team scoring battle by 312 points over the Colorado School of Mines and the rest of the 8-team field, 658-346.  Oklahoma Christian is in third with 255 points while Western Colorado is right behind with 253.
 
In the men's standings, the nation's fourth-ranked Mavericks hold a 578-412 lead over No. 10 Oklahoma Christian.  No. 13 Mines is 63 points further back in third of five teams with 349.
 
Women's Details
 
Borchardt, who has now won three conference titles in her championship debut, set the tone, taking the 100 fly in 55.27 seconds (55.17-altitude adjusted).  The time is an improved NCAA Division II Championship provisional qualifying time and moved her up a spot to second all-time.  The Mavs also had the third and fourth place finishers as Tori Bartusiak moved up two spots to seventh in CMU lore with a time of 56.90 (56.80-converted) while Logan Anderson was fourth in 57.61.
 
The Mavs then went 1-2-4 in the 400 individual medley as Borgenheimer dominated the back-half of the race, touching in 4:20.72 (4:15.72-coverted) to increase her national lead.  She was just off her own altitude-adjusted school record of 4:15.57 and the 12-year old RMAC and pool records of 4:20.02.
 
Borgenheimer has now won 18 RMAC titles in her three years at CMU, with five coming this week thus far.  A breaststroke specialist, she will have the 100 breast on Friday and the 200 breast on Saturday.  She won the national title in the latter in 2022. 
 
Meanwhile, sophomore Sophia Bains, who was the top qualifier out of the morning prelims, took the silver medal in 4:25.67 (4:20.67-converted) to set a high-level NCAA provisional mark, which could rank her as high as third nationally at the end of the weekend depending on other conference championship results.  Bains is also now second to only Borgenheimer in program history.  Fifth-year senior Amelia Kinnard was fourth in 4:31.56.
 
The winning then continued in a big way as Matoskova edged out three of her teammates in a thrilling 1-2-3-4 finish in the 200 free.  Now a 7-time RMAC champion, Matoskova touched in 1:50.46, just ahead of Lauren White (1:50.51), Ada Qunell (1:50.58) and Hansson (1:50.93).  Ruby Bottai (1:54.01) and Logan Anderson (1:54.98) were also in the final and took sixth and seventh, respectively.   Five of the Mavs eclipsed the NCAA "B" cut standard as Qunell set a new career-best and moved to third in program history behind Matoskova and White, who had slightly faster times in November at the TYR/CMU Invitational.
 
Action then shifted to the diving boards as Apodaca led a 1-2-5 CMU finish.  After taking third behind graduated teammates last year, Apodaca broke Jolynn Harris' pool record of 478.57 points with a preliminary round score of 479.65 points.  The sophomore from Sugar Land, Texas then took the final with 469.75 points while freshman Kenya Meyer took the silver with 458.80 points.  Victoria Nguyen finished fifth with 403.05 as all three surpassed the NCAA qualifying standard.  Apoadca was already assured of a trip to nationals while Meyer and Nguyen will now need a 6-dive score from next week's last chance qualifying meet to earn the same ticket.
 
The Mavs then won an exciting relay in 3:42.92 (3:42.52-converted), breaking Cal Baptist's 2015 RMAC Championship record of 3:44.16.  The Mavs also went under their school-record of 3:42.69 with the altitude conversions.  Matoskova went out in 55.52 to give the Mavs the early lead over Mines before a tremendous breaststroke leg by Jordan Tierney put the Orediggers in front at the half-way point. 
 
However, Borchardt re-claimed the lead out-dueling her Mines counterpart by more than a second with a 54.77 relay split before Hansson brought home the title with a 50.54 split time to claim her third gold medal of the week.
 
Men's Details
 
Urbanek defended his RMAC title in the 100 fly, posting a time of 48.01 seconds after coming from a slight deficit to Mines' Charles Burroughs at the 50-yard mark.  Urbanek had four teammates in the final as Lane Austin took fourth in 49.18 while John Walgast was fifth in 49.46.  Mado Elkady (49.83) and Felipe D'Orsi (50.39) also reached the finals while taking seventh and eighth.
 
Sampson then completed his individual medley sweep of the week, taking the 400-yard discipline in 3:54.98.  The national-leader in the event, Sampson has now won 13 career RMAC titles. 
 
Teammate Kyle Benjamin won the bronze medal in 3:59.19 while Aron Jonsson and Jacob Troescher joined them as NCAA provisional qualifiers.  Jonsson finished fifth in 4:03.36 after turning in a faster time of 4:02.51 (3:57.51-converted) in the morning session to take over the No. 9 spot in program history.  Troescher won the consolation final to place ninth overall in 4:05.06.
 
The Mavs were unable to continue their winning ways in the 200 free as Oklahoma Christian's Victor Rosado won the event in a pool and RMAC record setting time of 1:36.41, which is also an automatic qualifying mark for the national championships. 
 
The Mavs did have four men in the final as Matheus Laperriere took the bronze in 1:38.22 while freshman Jackson Moe finished fourth in 1:38.36 to move into seventh in program history with his converted and NCAA "B" cut mark of 1:37.16.
 
Kuba Kiszczak finished fifth in 1:38.40, after posting a faster time of 1:37.90 (1:36.70-converted) in the morning.  Jeremy Koch, who took seventh, and Urbanek, who won the consolation final to place ninth, also set NCAA provisional qualifying times.  Koch was clocked at 1:40.49 (1:39.29-converted) in the morning while Urbanek finished the evening swim in 1:39.78 (1:38.58-converted).
 
The Mavs' 400 medley relay team then finished second but with a season-best time as Sampson, Mahmoud Elgayar, Urbanek and Elkady claimed the silver medal in 3:13.44 (3:13.04-converted).  The Mavs' "B" team of Andrew Scoggin, Jonsson, Walgast and Laperriere were also victorious in their heat at 3:17.94, giving the Mavs' ninth place points as well.
 
The meet continues Friday morning at 9 a.m.  Eleven more events will then be decided during the 5 p.m. evening session.  Men's 1-meter diving preliminaries will be held in between at 1 p.m.