GRAND JUNCTION, Colo.— The Colorado Mesa University swimming and diving teams continued their winning and record-setting ways, claiming six conference titles and three new Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference Championship records on the Thursday evening, the third of five days of the meet.
 
Benedict Nagy and Aziz Ghaffari also set new school records for the Mavs while Dejan Urbanek and Ben Sampson successfully defended their 100-yard butterfly and 400-yard individual medley titles, respectively.
 
Meanwhile, Dawson Wilson dethroned teammate Isaiah Cheeks in the men's 3-meter diving event after Cheeks had swept the diving events at both of the last two RMAC meets.  The Mavs went 1-2-3 in that event and then capped the night by setting new RMAC Championship records in both 400 medley relays.
 
Added together, the Mavs won 14 of 23 possible medals throughout the night while further extending their lead in the team scoring chase.
 
The nation's top-ranked Maverick women, who won two events on Thursday, now have 593 points and a comfortable 251 ½ point cushion over the Colorado School of Mines, which remained in second place with 341 ½ points.  Simon Fraser is third out of the nine teams with 306 ½.
 
Meanwhile, the Maverick men won four of the night's five finals while putting five swimmers amongst the top seven in the lone event they did not win— the 200 freestyle— building a 259 point lead.  The Mavs now have 589 points while Mines is in second place with 330, 28 ahead of Oklahoma Christian, which slipped back to third of the 6-team competition with 302.
 
Nagy highlighted the impressive night, dominating the field in the women's 400 individual medley as she set new RMAC Championship, El Pomar Natatorium and CMU records with a time of 4:16.00, which extended her NCAA Division II performance list with an altitude-adjusted mark of 4:11.00.  She won the race by more than ten seconds over teammate Sophia Bains, who touched in a season-best 4:26.19 (4:21.19-converted).
 
Nagy's time was nearly a second better than her 3-month old pool and school record time of 4:16.96 (4:11.96-converted) and also was an incredible 4.02 seconds better than the oldest RMAC Championship record in the books, a time of 4:20.02 that was set 13 years ago by Casey Hurrell-Zielman of Incarnate Word at the 2011 meet.
 
Nagy, who also won the 200 IM and 800 free relay earlier in the week, is a graduate transfer from Division I Nevada, where she won the last three Mountain West Conference titles in the 400 IM.
 
Haven Hinkle also joined Bains as a NCAA provisional qualifier, finishing fifth in 4:34.86 (4:29.86-converted) while squeaking on to the Mavs top 10 all-time performers list.
 
On both sides of Nagy's win, the Maverick men reached the top of the podium as Urbanek and Sampson defended their titles in their respective events.
 
Urbanek took the 100 fly for the third straight year in a season-best and NCAA provisional qualifying time of 48.10 seconds (48.00-converted) to claim his third of now four conference titles of the week.  The junior from Serbia later helped the Mavs in their championship record-setting 400 medley relay win and now has ten RMAC titles to his credit.

Sampson also won his third and fourth titles of the week on Thursday and now has 19 in his illustrious career.
 
He won the 400 IM in 3:52.59 and then swam the opening backstroke leg of the 400 medley relay, which saw the Mavs win in a RMAC Championship time of 3:11.92, lowering Oklahoma Christian's year-old record of 3:12.20.  Freshman Max Ayres was on the breaststroke leg to claim his second medley relay title of the week while Ghaffari brought home the Mavs in the freestyle leg to win his second relay title of the week.
 
Earlier, Ghaffari nearly tracked down Oklahoma Christian star Victor Rosado in the 200 free but settled for the silver medal and a school record time of 1:36.18 (1:34.98-converted).  Rosado broke his own championship record in 1:35.99 while Ghaffari also went under Rosado's former meet record of 1:36.41. 
 
Ghaffari's time also broke Sampson's 3-month old school record of 1:35.42 (converted).
 
The Tunisian and Florida State transfer was far from the only Maverick to enjoy success in the event.  The Mavs scored 96 team points in that event alone with freshman Jameson McEnaney claiming the bronze medal with a third place time of 1:37.99 (1:36.79-converted).  The 50 free champion on Wednesday now ranks fifth in CMU history for the 200-yard discipline.
 
Kuba Kiszczak (3:49.49), Jackson Moe (1:39.98) and Ayres (1:40.23) finished fifth, sixth and seventh while Urbanek won the consolation final in 1:38.87.  Jeremy Koch also placed 11^th overall as he was one of six NCAA "B" cut setting Mavs during the evening session.
 
The Mavs were just as strong in diving as Wilson scored 566.50 points in the 3-meter final, ending up a comfortable 47.35 points ahead of Cheeks, the 2022 NCAA Division II National Champion in the event.  Cheeks still claimed the silver with 519.15 points after winning the last two RMAC titles in the discipline.
 
Meanwhile, CMU freshman Jax Juarros took third with 480.20 points after leading the preliminary round with 557.15 ahead of both Wilson and Cheeks.
 
Wilson was the RMAC Freshman of the Year last year and won his first RMAC title.
 
The Mavs' final win of the night came minutes after as Agata Naskret, Maddi Moran, Kiara Borchardt and Ada Qunell combined for a championship record time of 3:41.27 in the women's 400 medley relay, a substantial 1.65 seconds quicker than last year's record time. 
 
Naskret and Borchardt had also fared well in the 100 fly at the beginning of the night.  Borchardt claimed the silver medal in a career-best time of 54.82 seconds (54.72-converted) while Naskret finished fifth in 56.21 (56.11-converted) to move into a tie for fourth on the Mavs' all-time charts.  Tori Bartusiak was also in the final and finished sixth in 57.48 seconds.
 
Meanwhile, Qunell led a Maverick charge in the 200 free as CMU had four of the top five finishers behind Simon Fraser's Tori Meklensek, who charged over the final 50 to take the win in 1:49.77.  Qunell was second in 1:50.06 while Katerina Matoskova won the bronze medal in 1:50.40. Lauren White (1:50.62) and Olivia Hansson (1:50.70) were also in the top five.
 
The Mavericks were also able to win both "B" heats of the medley relays and have swept every official relay event. 
 
Another Maverick highlight came from Austin Patterson, who took fifth in Urbanek's 100 fly event and moved into tenth on the Mavs' all-time chart with a time of 49.04 seconds (48.94-converted).  Andrew Scoggin was also in the final and placed seventh in 49.44 seconds.
 
The Mavs also had numerous swimmers in the time trials held after the main session.
 
Highlights of those races included Sydnee O'Neil's 200 butterfly time of 2:04.41 (2:03.21-converted), which moved her ahead of Nagy for the 2023-24 team lead and into third on the Mavs' all-time charts.  Her time was also a NCAA "B" cut time that might get her into the national championships.
 
Aiden Strath also turned in an NCAA "B" cut time of 1:40.64 (1:39.44-converted) in the men's 200 freestyle time trial while Kate Leary moved into the No. 10 spot in the 100 fly with a time trial time of 56.97 seconds (56.87-converted).  Anna Beck was even faster in 56.71 seconds, just off her season-best of 56.64 (56.54-converted).