INDIANAPOLIS— Colorado Mesa University redshirt sophomore Ben Sampson made history on Wednesday night becoming the first Maverick men's swimmer to ever win a national title, as he claimed victory in the 200-yard individual medley at the NCAA Division II Swimming & Diving Championships which will run through Saturday evening at the Indiana University Natatorium.
 
Sampson, a native of Arvada, Colorado, won the race by nearly ¾'s of a second (0.73) in a time of one minute, 44.33 seconds, the fastest ever actual time in school history.  He also holds the CMU altitude-adjusted record of 1:43.76, set in November.
 
He took the lead during the backstroke leg of Wednesday's race, the second of four, and did not relinquish it en-route to his satisfying victory as the top-seeded swimmer coming into the meet and after the morning preliminary round, when he posted a time of 1:45.16.
 
The Ralston Valley High School graduate joined 2022 women's 200-yard breaststroke champion Lily Borgenheimer, who won the consolation final in the women's 200 IM on Thursday, as the only other Maverick swimmers to win NCAA Division II titles.  Divers Ammar Hassan, a 6-time champion between 2018-21, and Isaiah Cheeks, set to try to defend his 3-meter title on Thursday, have also won crowns for the Mavericks.
 
Sampson is also the top seed in his other three individual events this week, including the 400-yard individual medley, which will be contested on Thursday.  He holds the national record in the 200 backstroke which will be contested on Saturday after the 100 back on Friday.
 
Sampson's victory, along with his lead-off performance on the Mavs' eighth-place 200 medley relay team, allowed him to reach double-figures (10) for career all-America honors and has kept the Maverick men in the fifth place in the team standings with 76 ½ points through five events.  They were also in fifth after Tuesday's lone event, the 800 free relay.
 
Meanwhile, the CMU women, who placed third in the 200 medley relay with a school-record time of 1:41.54 to cap the Wednesday night, remained in fourth place in the team standings with 85 team points after six women's events.

The Maverick men combined for seven total and five first team all-America honors throughout the day as Kyle Benjamin held on to finish in a tie for 11^th in the 1,000 freestyle.  He posted a time of 9:10.77 in the morning session and was in fourth place before the top eight seeded swimmers kicked off the evening finals session.
 
Teammates Jacob Troescher and Gavin Anderson also swam during the morning and ended up in 20^th and 28^th place, respectively.
 
Meanwhile, Kuba Kiszczak finished 16^th in the 200 IM with a consolation finals time of 1:48.92.  He had posted a time of 1:48.21 in the morning and then won a swim-off to reach the finals.  He now has four career all-American honors, including one from Tuesday night in the 800 free relay.
 
Sampson, Mahmoud Elgayar, Dejan Urbanek and Lane Austin then combined to finish the 200 medley relay in 1:27.02.  Elgayar now has a CMU men's all-sport record of 14 All-America honors to his credit and posted the second fastest breaststroke split of 23.71 seconds out of the 20 teams while Urbanek picked up his sixth as the butterfly leg (21.45).  Austin claimed his 11th as the freestyle leg, closing in 20.09 seconds.  Sampson had opened with a 21.77-second backstroke split.
 
The Maverick women also had a pair of top-8 finishes and three other team-scoring efforts as Lauren White, Borgenheimer, Kiara Borchardt and Ruby Bottai posted their school-record time to earn 32 points with the third place finish in the 200 medley relay.  White also broke her own 50 back school record with a lead-off split of 25.27 seconds and earned her CMU all-sport record extending 18^th career all-America honor.  Borgenheimer now has 14 career honors in three years at CMU and has 17 overall collegiate all-America certificates, including three earned in her first two seasons at Minnesota State.  Borchardt, a freshman, picked up her first while Bottai now has three honors.
 
Earlier in the evening, Amelia Kinnard posted a career-best time of 10:06.58 to place eighth overall in the 1000 free, good for her third career all-America certificate.  School-record holder Olivia Hansson, seeded second coming in, finished 29^th in 10:22.72.
 
Borgenheimer then bounced back from missing out of the championship final in the 200 IM, to win the consolation heat in 2:01.57 as she finished ninth overall, helping set the tone for Sampson's victory just minutes later.
 
The Mavericks also had an all-America performance on the diving boards as sophomore Kyra Apodaca ended up 14^th in the 1-meter event.  She was 13^th after the preliminary rounds with an 11-dive score of 400.20 points and racked up 380.25 points in the consolation final.  Apodaca has now won three Second Team All-America honors in as many opportunities in her career.
 
Nine more events will be decided on Thursday  as preliminary heats in the 100 fly, 400 IM and 200 free will get underway at 10 a.m. Eastern (8 a.m. MST).  The men's 3-meter diving preliminaries, which will feature four Mavericks, including Cheeks, in the 18-man field, and consolation final will then be held at 1 p.m. Eastern (11 a.m. MST) before the finals session will commence at 6 p.m. Eastern (4 p.m. MST).  That session will also include the men's 3-meter diving finals and will end with the 400 medley relays.