GRAND JUNCTION, Colo.— The Colorado Mesa University swimming and diving teams will open the 2024-25 season at home this Friday & Saturday, hosting the 14
th annual Intermountain Shootout in the Mavs' El Pomar Natatorium.
Both Maverick squads will take on a pair of Big 12 Conference foes in BYU and Utah while the women will also take on Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference rival CSU Pueblo, which does not sponsor men's swimming, in the weekend event.
Action will begin at 4 p.m. on Friday and will resume at 10:30 a.m. on Saturday. Diving competitions will be held concurrently with the swimming events on both days.
A complete schedule can be seen in the
meet information packet.
Live results can be accessed here or with a subscription to MeetMobile and a
basic live stream of the entire meet can be seen on the RMAC Network. There will be separate streams for the swimming and diving events so fans wanting to watch both will need separate screens or devices.
Meet Format
Each day's competition will be scored as a separate meet and will be conducted under a multi-team dual-meet scoring format. Each team will compile a team score against each other foe based on head-to-head finishes in each event.
Points in each team match-up are awarded on a 9-4-3-2-1 basis in the individual events and on a 11-4-2 scoring structure for the relay events. Teams are limited to three scorers in each individual event and to two scoring relays but can enter as many individuals and relays as they wish.
Individual swimmers are allowed to score in four events each day but may also exhibition in others if desired.
Twenty-two events (11 for each gender) will be contested each day.
A look back to 2023-24
The Mavericks continued to climb the national ladder, recording their best national championship performances in March.
The Maverick women combined to win seven events, including three relays, at the NCAA Division II National Championships and took a program-best second place in the final standings at the national meet. The Maverick men matched their best ever effort with a fifth place finish. They also set a new program record for national championship team points with 279 and received four individual national championship performances from
Ben Sampson.
At the conference level, the Mavericks swept the RMAC team titles for the sixth consecutive year while dominating the meet. The Mavs won 30 of the 42 events throughout the meet, taking all ten relays and all four diving events.
Award-Winners
Fittingly, the Mavericks brough in quite a haul of post-season awards at both the national and conference level last year.
Mickey Wender was named as the CSCAA (College Swimming & Diving Coaches Association of America)'s NCAA Division II Women's Swimming Coach of the Year while
Ben Sampson was named as the National Men's Swimmer of the Year for the consecutive year after winning all four of his individual events, two with national record times.
Sampson was also named as the RMAC Men's Swimmer of the Year for the third consecutive year while diving teammate
Isaiah Cheeks claimed the conference's men's diver of the year award for the third straight season as well.
Agata Naskret, who won a CMU all-sports record five national titles in the same year, was named as the RMAC Women's Swimmer of the Year while
Jenna Hurley claimed the RMAC Women's Diver of the Year award.
Jameson McEnaney was also tabbed as the RMAC Men's Freshman of the Year while Wender claimed RMAC Women's Coach of the Year honors as well.
Record Setting Relays
The Mavericks re-wrote much of their record book in 2023-24, setting new school records in all ten relay events at least once during the year. Six of the ten current records were set during the NCAA Division II National Championships, where the Mavs won their first three relay titles in program history, taking the 400 Medley, 200 Free and 400 Free Relay titles on the women's side.
National Champions
The Mavericks swam to 11 national championships in 2023-24 after winning three events in the previous two years, their first swimming national titles. The Maverick men have also won seven national diving event crowns since 2018.
The Mavericks will return one of their three individual national champions from 2024 in
Agata Naskret, who won both the 100 and 200-yard backstroke titles, doing so with school-record times.
Naskret was also a member of all three of the aforementioned championship winning relay teams, which all set school-records as well.
In total, the Mavericks return ten of the combined 12 legs from those relay teams this year.
Ada Qunell was also a member of all three winning relays while
Elli Williams swam on the 200 and 400 Free teams.
Maddi Moran and
Kiara Borchardt were the middle breaststroke and butterfly legs on the 400 Medley Relay squad.
However, the Mavs will have to replace some of the greatest swimmers in program history, who won titles last year.
Lauren White anchored the 200 and 400 Free Relay teams and ended her 5-year CMU career with 30 all-America honors.
The Mavs also graduated 200 and 400 IM champion
Benedict Nagy, who is now a volunteer assistant coach for the Mavs after using her fifth year of eligibility with the Mavs. On the men's side, the Mavs will have to replace
Ben Sampson, who completed his bachelor's degree and his 4-year Maverick career with six national titles amongst a multitude of honors. Sampson is now using his COVID waiver and fifth season of eligibility at Division I Power Texas, under the direction of Coach Bob Bowman.
National Championship Run
Excluding, 2020 when the national championship meet was canceled 1 ½ days in due to the initial stages of the COVID pandemic, the Mavericks have won at least one national championship event every year since 2018, a streak they will hope to continue into 2025.
Olympian & Olympic Trials
The Maverick men have an Olympian on their 2024-25 roster in freshman
Harry Stacey and have another who competed at the 2024 U.S. Olympic Trials in now team captain
Andrew Scoggin.
Stacey, represented Ghana in the 100-meter freestyle event at the 2024 Paris Olympics this summer while Scoggin competed in the 100-meter backstroke at the Olympic Trails alongside
Ben Sampson.
Stacey's collegiate debut will have to wait as he will be on international duty in the coming days, once again representing Ghana in the Africa Aquatics Zone 2 (West Africa) Championships, which Ghana will host in their capital of Accra. That meet will be held next Monday-Wednesday (Oct. 7-9).
All-American List
The Mavericks roster or returning all-Americans is quite lengthy and impressive.
The Mavericks had 21 different individuals combine for 77 CSCAA All-America honors at last year's championships. The Mavericks return 15 of those people to this year's roster and have 19 total returning all-Americans on this year's roster, including four who earned honors in 2023.
The returning group from 2024 earned a combined total of 55 all-America honors last year, 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 2024 and the total number in their career.
Women
Sophia Bains (2/3)
Kiara Borchardt (3/6)
Olivia Hansson (2/5)
Katerina Matoskova (8/14)
Maddi Moran (4/5)
Agata Naskret (7/7)
Ada Qunell (5/9)
Elli Williams (4/4)
Men
Max Ayres (2/2)
Wyatt Hermanson (0/2)
Kuba Kiszczak (5/12)
Matheus Laperriere (0/7)
Jameson McEnaney (4/4)
Jackson Moe (0/1)
Marcos Otero (1/1)
Austin Patterson (1/1)
Andrew Scoggin (4/5)
Dejan Urbanek (3/11)
Dawson Wilson (0/2)
RMAC Dual Streak
The Maverick women will have a chance to extend their dual meet winning streak against fellow RMAC members to 36 this weekend if they are able to defeat CSU Pueblo on both days of this weekend's competition.
The Mav women had just two RMAC duals last year, and this weekend's match-ups with the ThunderWolves are the only RMAC duals on the Mavs' 2024-25 schedule.
CMU's dual streak reaches back more than eight years to Jan. 22, 2016.
The Maverick men are not slated to have any duals against RMAC foes this season. They have won 13 straight RMAC duals since the 2016-17 season.
Division I Schedule
As in recent years, Maverick Head Coach
Mickey Wender has built a schedule that will pit the Mavericks against many of the top programs in the Mountain Time Zone and the Western United States as a whole. The Mavericks are slated to compete against NCAA Division I foes in each of their eight regular season meets leading into the RMAC and NCAA Division II Championships.
After this weekend's pair of competitions, which includes competition against Big 12 Conference foes BYU and Utah, the Mavs will host Wyoming in a dual on Oct. 26 before splitting their squads on Nov. 2 with the women heading to Fort Collins to face Colorado State while men will be at Denver on that same day.
Utah, Wyoming and Northern Arizona are amongst the teams that will compete in CMU's TYR Invitational from Nov. 20-23.
The Mavs will then head to the UNLV Invitational before the holiday break from Dec. 16-18 before coming back from the break to face Utah on Jan. 10. The Mavs will then wrap up the pre-championship season at the Air Force Dual Meet Invitational on Jan. 17-18.
The Maverick divers have also recently added Northern Arizona's Lumberjack Diving Invitational (Nov. 21-23) to their schedule.
The Friendly Confines
The Mavericks will once again host the RMAC Championships, doing so for the sixth straight year in February (Feb. 11-15).
The Mavs also hosted the championship meet for five straight years from 2013-17 after first hosting in 2011.
Including the RMAC Championships and this week's two meets, the Mavericks are slated to take full advantage of the top-level El Pomar Natatorium, as they will home for six different meets this year.
