GRAND JUNCTION, Colo.— The Colorado Mesa University women's triathlon team will aim for the national title when they compete in this weekend's Women's Collegiate Triathlon National Championships in Clermont, Florida.
 
Action will be contested on both Friday and Saturday.
 
Format & Site Changes
 
After competing in Tempe, Arizona for the national championship each year throughout the program's history that began in 2017, the Mavericks will head to a new location for this year's championship.
 
Clermont, Florida, which hosted the first ever championship in 2014, was selected by USA Triathlon to host to this year's event, which has been forced into using another unique format.
 
Due to the Hurricane Milton damage from earlier this fall and the safety concerns related to swimming in Lake Louisa, which was the original swim venue, the triathletes will now compete in an open water 750-yard swim time trial will be contested at the nearby Clermont Watersports Park on Friday morning.  That stage of the competition will begin at 10:45 EST (8:45 a.m. Mountain).  That decision was finalized by the Collegiate Triathlon Coaches Association late last week.
 
Those results will then set the start order and margins for a pursuit style run/bike duathlon race on Saturday.  That race will begin with staggered starts in each of the three waves and will begin with a short run into the transition zone for a 20-kilometer bike segment contested over four loops of a 5K course at Lake Louisa State Park.  The athletes will then transition to a 5K run over two loops, which will ultimately decide the team and individual titles.

A course description and maps can be seen here.
 
Last Time Out
 
The Mavericks last raced at the West National Qualifier on Oct. 12 in Springfield, Missouri.  They finished sixth overall out of 16 teams with a score of 450 team points, taking second out of the Division II teams.  Host Drury won the Division II crown with 478 points, stopping CMU's run of five straight regional crowns that had dated back to 2018.
 
Arizona State won the overall and Division I team title on a tie-breaker over in-state rival Arizona State after both teams scored 614 team points.  Denver finished third with 595 while South Dakota took fourth overall with 529, ahead of Drury.
 
Black Hills State (441), Cal Poly Humboldt (418) and UIndy (315) were the other Division II teams at the race and took seventh, ninth and tenth place overall, respectively.
 
On an individual basis, CMU freshman Shantelle Tupaz took 28^th overall and second amongst Division II triathletes with a time of one hour, eight minutes, 37 seconds.  Former Maverick Natalie
Mitchell, now competing at Cal Poly Humboldt, was the top Division II finisher in 25^th place overall with a time of 1:07:31.
 
Notably, CMU redshirt senior Shannon Feran did not finish after suffering in the hot conditions, but was running at the front of the Division II pack when pulled from the course.  She was the defending Division II regional champion.
 
A full meet recap can be seen here.
 
Tupaz wins Honors
 
As Division II's top freshman finisher, Shantelle Tupaz was named as the CTCA's All-West Freshman and to the 7-person Division II All-West Region team.  The Pleasanton, California native is the fifth Maverick to earn the freshman award joining current teammate Josie Williams (2022) as well as Anna Lausch (2018), Mazzy Jackson (2019) and Paloma Suarez Davila (2021) as the CMU triathletes to earn the prestigious accolade.
 
The Mavericks have also had at least one all-region honoree in every year since starting the program in 2017.
 
Waves
 
Both days of action at the national championship will feature three waves of athletes, divided up into a maximum of 75 athletes each based on results from the East and West National Qualifiers last month.  The results of all three waves will then be merged together to determine the overall individual and team standings.

The wave assignments can be seen here.
 
As a team, the Mavericks have been put in Wave B, which will begin at Noon EST (10 a.m. Mountain) on Saturday.  However, freshman Shantelle Tupaz qualified individually for Wave A, which will begin two hours later at 2 p.m. EST (Noon Mountain) and will have the advantage of competing against faster athletes, especially key in the draft-legal bike segment on Saturday.  However, she will have to work by herself while the rest of the Mavericks will be able to work with their teammates.
 
Wave C will start at 10 a.m. EST (8 a.m. Mountain) on Saturday.
 
The waves will be held in the opposite order for the swim time trial on Friday.  Tupaz and her fellow top wave swimmers will begin at 10:45 a.m. EST (8:45 a.m. Mountain) with Wave B starting 20 minutes later.
 
As was the case in 2023, the wave assignments were based on regional finishes and times and not based on the Division (I, II, III) of the teams and individuals.  Thus, the Mavs' positioning in the Division II standings will not truly come from head-to-head competition, but rather on the finishing times from Division II triathletes in the various waves.
 
The format change of a swim time trial followed by the duathlon on a separate day adds a further wrinkle in to the various team strategy.
 
Rankings
 
The Mavericks will enter the national meet ranked fourth amongst Division II teams and 14^th overall with a ranking score of 433.53 points, based on times of their five fastest finishers at the West National Qualifier.
 
2023 NCAA Division II Runner-Up Wingate, ranked sixth overall, is the top Division II team in the rankings with 476.97 points and won the East Regional for the third straight year.  Lenoir-Rhyne, which won the Division II national title, is ranked ninth overall with 470.31 points while Drury, which edged CMU for the West Regional title, is ranked 12^th overall with 440.61 points.  Black Hills State (430.24), ranked 15^th overall, and Cal Poly Humboldt (423.30), ranked 17^th overall are also dark horse contenders for the Division II crown while No. 22 UIndy (385.82) was the only other Division II squad to qualify a full 7-person team.
 
Six teams qualified for Wave A by finishing amongst the top three teams at each regional qualifier.  All six of those teams were from Division I squads.
 
Queens (N.C.) is ranked first overall with 492.87 points, edging Arizona (492.83) and 7-time defending national champion Arizona State (491.76) for the top spot in the rankings.  Denver (488.29), Texas Christian (486.63) round out the top five and will be joined in the Wave A by seventh-ranked East Tennessee State (476.68).
 
Five of the nine teams to qualify for Wave B are Division II teams.  However, sixth-ranked Wingate, the top ranked Division II squad in the overall rankings, qualified seven individuals for Wave A and will thus have all their athletes in that heat.  Ninth-ranked Lenoir-Rhyne also qualified five individuals for Wave A.  CMU's Tupaz was the only other Division II triathlete to qualify an individual for the top wave.
 
North Central, the Division III favorites, did not qualify as a team for Wave B but did qualify all seven individuals for the middle wave.   Similarly, Cal Poly Humboldt qualified six of seven individuals for Wave B, which will largely feature most of the Division II field.  However, Tupaz, all of Wingate's contingent and most of Lenoir Rhyne's group will race in Wave A.
 
Individually, Lenoir Rhyne's Sabrina Fleig is the top Division II triathlete, sitting 15^th in the overall rankings with a score of 97.88 points.  Wingate has the No. 26 and 27 overall ranked triathletes in Irmak Sereflioglu (96.72) and Carla Larrabeiti (96.70).  Tupaz is ranked 73^rd overall with a score of 91.26.
 
National History
 
The Mavericks began their program in 2017, taking ninth place out of 11 overall teams.   Standings were not split by division that year.  The Mavs have since recorded top 4 finishes amongst Division II teams every year since, placing second twice (2018, 2022), third last year (2023) and fourth out of eight teams in both 2019 and 2021.  There was no championship in 2020 due to COVID ramifications.
 
A look at the Lineup

Third-year Maverick Coach Jen Mathe has selected the following seven women to represent the Mavs this week: Mariana Batarse Duenes, Shannon Feran, Nadine Klive, Torin Lackmann, Mackenzie Mayer, Shantelle Tupaz and Josie Williams.
 
That group includes the four previously mentioned CTCA All-Americans and three freshmen in Batarse Duenes, Mayer and Tupaz, who will be making their national championship debuts.
All seven members of the team competed at the West Regional Qualifier although Williams was a non-team-scoring triathlete at that race.  She is replacing Audyn Setzer in the Mavs' lineup this week.
 
National Experience
 
Shannon Feran placed third amongst Division II triathletes (27^th overall) at last year's national championships.  Torin Lackmann (12^th), Nadine Klive (19^th) were also amongst the Mavericks' lineup a year ago.
 
Feran also placed third in 2022 and took 11^th in her first national championship race in 2021.

Lackmann was 15^th in 2022, the first of her previous national championship efforts.  Klive placed 11^th in 2022 as a freshman.
 
Josie Williams, who missed most of the 2023 season due to injury, took 21^st as a freshman in 2022.
 
All-Americans
 
The top 21 triathletes from each division will earn CTCA All-America honors with those finishing first through seventh in their division, claiming first team plaudits.  The eighth through 14^th finishers in each division will be named as Second Team All-Americans while the 15^th through 21^st finishers in each division will garner Honorable Mention recognition.
 
Although the selection process has varied over the year, the Mavericks have had  ten different women earn 15 total All-Americans throughout the history of the CMU program.  Four current Mavericks have won eight of those honors.
 
Current redshirt senior Shannon Feran is already the most decorated Maverick in program history with three total honors.  She has been a first team pick in each of the last two years after earning second team honors in 2021.  Fellow senior Torin Lackmann is also a 2-time honoree.  She earned second team honors last year after picking up honorable mention honors as a sophomore in 2022.

Junior Nadine Klive is also a 2-time honoree, having claimed second team honors as a freshman in 2022 and honorable mention accolades last year.
 
Josie Williams was also an honorable mention pick in 2022 before redshirting last year.
 
Up Next
 
Saturday's race will conclude the fall championship season.  Although the Mavericks have not yet announced their spring non-championship season schedule, they have traveled to Clermont, Florida for the Clermont Draft Legal Challenge in two of the past three springs, including in 2024.