GRAND JUNCTION, Colo.— The Colorado Mesa University swimming & diving teams are going hunting in Ohio this week.
 
"Hunting for points" has been the team motto after the Mavericks swept their sixth straight Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference team titles last month.
 
If successful, those points would translate into high finishes and possible team and individual titles at the NCAA Division II Championships, which begin Tuesday at the SPIRE Institute in Geneva, Ohio, east of Cleveland just off I-90.
 
The Mavs will have a large and highly touted hunting party of 22 invited swimmers, two additional relay-only swimmers and up to eight divers, who will compete in Tuesday morning's pre-championship qualification meet with aspirations of joining their swimming counterparts in the official championship meet, which begins Tuesday evening with 800-yard freestyle relays.
 
Follow the Mavs

Live results of the meet can be accessed here.  A live stream can also be found on NCAA.com, which will also provide updates throughout the meet.
 
A CMU-centric daily recap will also be posted on www.cmumavericks.com each night and fans can follow the CMU Swim & Dive Instagram account for some great on-site content.
 
The meet selections, complete meet schedule and other information can be found here.

Tickets can be purchased through the Greater Cleveland Sports Commission's website. 
 
In the Polls & Rankings
 
The Mavericks will enter the NCAA Championships highly ranked in a multitude of ways.
 
For starters, the Maverick women were ranked first once again in the College Swimming and Diving Coaches Association of American (CSCAA)'s final edition of the Division II Top 25 dual meet poll, announced last Friday.
 
The Maverick women have been ranked first in that monthly poll each month since December.  The Maverick men moved up two spots to fourth after sitting sixth in the February poll and were fifth in the January edition.
 
The poll voting committees, consistent of Division II coaches, assesses and ranks the nation's top 25 dual meet teams.  Their evaluation takes into account head-to-head dual meet outcomes, performances since the last rankings, season-long performances, dual meet records, roster changes (such as injuries), and data from the SwimCloud Simulator.
 
"However, it is important to note that the poll's objective is not to predict the top finishers in a championship meet format," as is stated in the poll release.
 
Meanwhile, both Maverick teams are ranked first in the Swimcloud Championship rankings, which are based on season-best times reported to the website throughout the season.
 
The Maverick men have 743.18 points in those rankings to sit just ahead of Drury's 742.98.  Drury is also second in the CSCAA poll behind defending national champion Indianapolis, which is sixth in the Swimcloud rankings.  McKendree is third in the CSCAA poll and fourth in the Swimcloud Rankings.  Tampa is third in the Swimcloud Rankings and sixth in the poll while Grand Valley State occupies the No. 5 spot in both.
 
The Maverick women have a clearer advantage, occupying the Swimcloud ranking's top spot with 709.18 points to sit ahead of defending national champion Nova Southeastern' s 697.51.  The Sharks are third in the CSCAA poll.  Drury is ranked second in the CSCAA poll and fifth in the Swimcloud rankings.
 
SwimSwam, a highly popular website devoted to the coverage of the sport, has also scored out the team standings from the pre-meet psych sheets. However, those projections do not include diving, which are heavily dependent on Tuesday's pre-championship qualification meet.
 
CMU's women are second in SwimSwam's Psych Sheet scoring with 466.5 points behind Nova Southeastern, which is predicted to score 510 ½. However, the Sharks do not have any divers.  Drury is picked third with 421 points. The Panthers also do not have any women's divers.
 
The Maverick men are picked fourth before diving being figured with 326 points as one of five teams between 300-376. Tampa has the most predicted points with 376, ahead of Drury (360), Indianapolis (340 ½). UIndy has two divers in Tuesday's qualification meet while Drury has one.  Tampa does not have any.
 
Meet Scoring
 
A total of 21 events (19 swimming, 2 diving) will be contested for each gender and team points will be awarded to the top 16 individual finishers with 20 points going to the winner, 17 for second and 16 for third place with the fourth through eighth place finishers earning them on a 15-14-13-12-11 basis.
 
The consolation final winner will place ninth overall and score nine points. The 10^th-16^th place finishers will score seven through one points, respectively.
 
Relay events are worth double and will be critical to the Mavs and other contenders' team championship hopes.  There are five relay events, one of which will cap each evening's action.
 
Meet Schedule
 
Tuesday's portion of the official championship is a brief evening session with the 800-yard freestyle relay events, starting at 6 p.m. EDT (4 p.m. Mountain) although the diving pre-championship qualification meet will be held earlier in the day, starting at 10 a.m. EDT (8 a.m. Mountain).
 
The format and schedule for Wednesday through Saturday is more consistent and will feature swim preliminary sessions starting at 10 a.m. EDT (8 a.m. Mountain) each morning.  Diving preliminaries will begin at 1 p.m. EDT (11 a.m. Mountain). The consolation diving finals, which will determine the 9th-16th place finishers, will then be held following a short break while the eight championship finalists will return in latter part of the combined swimming and diving evening finals session, which will begin at 5:30 p.m. EDT (3:30 p.m. Mountain) each evening.
 
Individual swimmers are permitted to swim in events they were selected for the championship in as well as any other in which they set an NCAA "B" cut time throughout the season.  However, each individual is limited to four individual events and seven total events, including relays.
 
If the Mavericks are able to qualify divers out of Tuesday's pre-championship qualification meet, they are poised to be represented in all 42 events.  A full list of Maverick qualifiers by event can be found later in this preview.
 
Climbing the Ladder

The Mavericks will be looking to break their year-old program records for team finishes after finishing fourth (women's) and fifth (men's) at last year's NCAA Championships in Indianapolis.  Those finishes were both one place higher than the Mavs had finished in 2022, when the CMU women took fifth while the men were sixth.
 
CMU also set new program records for team points last year, tallying 325 women's and 274 ½ men's points, breaking the 2022 championship efforts.
 
Individual Champions & National Award Winners
 
The Mavericks have two previous individual national champions on their roster this year in swimming standout Ben Sampson and diving star Isaiah Cheeks.  Sampson, a fourth-year redshirt junior, won both the 200-yard backstroke and 200-yard individual medley titles last year and went on to be named as the CSCAA's Men's Swimmer of the Year.  He scored 71 team points at last year's NCAA Championships to co-lead the entire men's field and is the all-time Division II record holder in the 200 back with a time of 1:40.73 (1:39.53-altitude adjusted).
 
Cheeks won the 3-meter title in 2022 and was that year's CSCAA Men's Diver of the Year.
 
They and former 6-time NCAA Diving Champion Ammar Hassan are the Mavericks' only previous individual national champions on the men's side.  Lily Borgenheimer is the only Maverick woman to have ever won an individual title.  She won the 2022 crown in the 200-yard breaststroke before taking second in that event last year as a fifth-year senior.
 
All-American Hunt
 
In addition to scoring team points, the top 16 finishers in each event will earn all-America certificates from the CSCAA.  The top eight finishers, who will also be presented with awards during the various podium presentations, will garner first-team honors, while the ninth through 16^th place finishers will claim second-team plaudits.
 
All-American List
 
The Mavericks' roster or returning all-Americans is quite lengthy and impressive.
 
Eighteen (10 men, 8 women) of the 27 Mavericks who earned a combined 80 CSCAA All-America honors in 2023 are on this year's roster and 14 of those 18 are part of CMU's national championship meet contingent this year.
 
The 14 returning all-Americans who are on the trip to Ohio in 2024 combined for 47 (22 men's, 25 women's) All-America honors in 2023 and have accumulated 85 (47 women's, 38 men's) honors in their combined careers.
 
Fifth-year Maverick senior Lauren White leads the group with 23 honors as the most decorated CMU student-athlete in all sports in institutional history.  She and Ben Sampson, who has 14 career honors in the past two years, both received the maximum seven possible honors in 2022.
 
Sampson is on the verge of tying and breaking former teammate Mahmoud Elgayar's men's program record of 15 all-America honors and if he is able to earn two honors this year, Sampson would become the most decorated male CMU student-athlete in institutional history in terms of total all-America honors.
 
Here's a list of CMU's returning All-Americans, along with the number of honors each received in 2023 and the total number in their career.
 
Women
Sophia Bains (1/1)
Kiara Borchardt (3/3)
Olivia Hansson (2/2)
Katerina Matoskova (5/11)
Maddi Moran (1/1)
Izzy Powers (2/2)
Ada Qunell (4/4)
Lauren White (7/23)
 
Men
Isaiah Cheeks (2/6)
Mado Elkady (3/4)*
Wyatt Hermanson (2/2)*
Kuba Kiszczak (5/7)
Matheus Laperriere (4/7)*
Jackson Moe (1/1)*
Ben Sampson (7/14)
Andrew Scoggin (1/1)
Dejan Urbanek (4/8)
Dawson Wilson (2/2)
 
*-Not a part of the 2024 Championship squad
 
Top Seeds
 
The Mavericks have the top seed in 11 different swimming events, including eight individual events and three relays.
 
Ben Sampson will enter as the No. 1 seed in all four of his individual events with the nation's top times of 45.80 (100 Back), 1:42.04 (200 IM), 3:40.20 (400 IM) and 1:39.63 (200 Back) this season.
 
Meanwhile, two different Maverick women lead the pre-meet psych sheets in four combined events.
 
Graduate transfer Benedict Nagy paces the country in both individual medleys with seed times of 1:59.43 (200) and 4:11.00 (400), while sophomore Agata Naskret leads the lists in both backstroke events.  The sophomore has 100- and 200-yard times of 52.92 seconds and 1:56.07, respectively, to her credit, both of which were set at the RMAC Championships.  Nagy's 400 IM time also came at the RMAC Championships.
 
The Mavericks also have the top seed time in three relay events, including the men's 800 free (6:24.70), women's 200 medley (1:39.97) and women's 400 free (3:21.15).  The Maverick women's 800 free (7:14.17) and 400 medley (3:39.43) teams are also seeded second.
 
RMAC Championship Rewind
 
The Mavericks once again dominated the RMAC Championships as both the men and women six-peated. 
 
The Mavs won 30 of the 42 events throughout the meet while setting numerous pool, school and championship records in the 5-day meet (Feb. 13-17) at the El Pomar Natatorium.
 
The Maverick women are the first program in conference history to win six titles, surpassing now-Division I Cal Baptist's run of five straight from 2014-18.  They finished with 1,221 points to win by nearly 600 over second-place Colorado School of Mines, which finished with 637 ½.  RMAC newcomer and affiliate member Simon Fraser was third with 626 ½.
 
The CMU women also finished the week with 36 total medals, while the rest of the conference won 27 combined.
 
The Maverick men were just as dominant, claiming 15 gold medals while racking up 1,153 ½ team points to win by 464 ½ over Mines, which did not have any individual event wins.  Oklahoma Christian won the other six events and took third with 636 team points.
 
The Maverick men also became the first RMAC men's team to win six straight crowns, breaking Western Colorado's 5-year streak from 1973-77.  The Mavs, who did not begin their program until the 20091-10 campaign, also won a record-extending eighth overall title after winning their first two crowns in 2014 and 2017.  They started their 6-year winning streak in 2019.
 
Both Maverick teams were incredibly dominant in the relays and diving events.  They swept all ten relay events while winning all 20 "A" and "B" relay heats throughout the meet.
 
They also had four different divers win the conference title, racking up 1-2-3 sweeps in three of them while claiming 11 of the possible 12 diving medals throughout the week.
 
Complete Recaps of each of the five days can be found below
 
Day 1 Recap (Tuesday, Feb. 13)
Day 2 Recap (Wednesday, Feb. 14)
Day 3 Recap (Thursday, Feb. 15)
Day 4 Recap (Friday, Feb. 16)
Day 5 Recap (Saturday, Feb. 17)
 
RMAC Awards
 
The Mavs were also well represented in the RMAC Championship post-meet awards.  Ben Sampson was named as the RMAC Swimmer of the Meet after winning all four of his individual and all seven of his overall events.  He is now a 22-time RMAC Champion, a program record.
 
Isaiah Cheeks was named the RMAC Men's Diver of the Meet for the third straight year.
 
The Mavs also had two women share the RMAC Women's Diver of the Meet award as freshman Jenna Hurley and sophomore Kenya Meyer both won an event while taking second behind the other on the opposite board.
 
Simon Fraser's Tori Meklensek was named as the RMAC Women's Swimmer of the Meet, edging CMU's Benedict Nagy on tie-breaking procedures.  They both won their first three events before finishing second on the meet's final night.
 
All of the RMAC athlete of the meet awards were based on team points earned.
 
In diving, co-divers of the meet were honored since Hurley and Meyer both scored 37 team points.
 
Sampson won the men's swimmer of the meet award, scoring 80 points after losing a tie-breaker last year to Oklahoma Christian's Victor Rosado, who also won four individual titles this year.  Sampson was on the other end of that tie-breaker (points in relays) this year.
 
Nagy and Meklensek scored 77 team points this year, but Nagy was on just one Maverick "A" relay team this year while Meklensek had three such opportunities to edge the Maverick for the women's swimmer of the meet honor.
 
The RMAC's various Athlete and Coach of the Year awards will be determined by a vote of the league's head coaches following the NCAA Championships.
 
Long Course
 
On Sunday, following the conclusion of the NCAA Championships, a group of Mavericks will compete in the Division II Long Course Invitational, a meet geared for athletes to set qualifying times for their various international swimming aspirations in this Olympic year, highlighted by the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris France.
 
Those races will be held on a 50-meter course, the international standard for the sport.
 
That meet will begin at 10 a.m. EDT (8 a.m. Mountain) and will also take place in the SPIRE Institute.  Indiana University of Pennsylvania will be the official host.
 
CMU also competed in a similar meet in December as Ben Sampson set his second U.S. Olympic Trials qualifying time in the 200-yard individual medley. 
 
Qualifier List
 
As mentioned earlier in this preview, the Mavericks have 22 invited (11 men, 11 women) swimmers, who are all permitted to swim in the events that they were selected in as well as any other individual events that they reached the NCAA "B Cut" qualifying standard in at some point this season.  They can also be on any of the Maverick relay teams at the discretion of the Maverick coaching staff.  However, each individual swimmer is limited to participating in no more than four individual and seven total events throughout the meet.
 
Additionally, the Mavericks have taken two "relay only" swimmers in sprint freestyle specialists Austin Patterson and Izzy Powers, who are likely to see action in the 200 and 400 free and/or medley relay events.
 
The Mavericks will be represented in all 10 relay events and are likely to have representation in all 28 individual swimming events— 14 for each gender.  They could also say the same for all four diving events should they qualify at least one men and one women out of Tuesday's pre-championship qualification. 
 
Here is a breakdown of the Mavericks' complete event eligibility along with their pre-meet psych sheet seed and time in event order and broken down by day.
 
Tuesday

1. Women's 800 Free Relay – 2. CMU (7:14.17)
2. Men's 800 Free Relay – 1. CMU (6:24.70)

Wednesday

3. Women's 200 Individual Medley- 1. Benedict Nagy (1:59.43), 6. Sophia Bains (2:01.35), 28. Ada Qunell (2:04.34)
4. Men's 200 Individual Medley- 1. Ben Sampson (1:42.04), 18. Kuba Kiszczak (1:47.84), 33. Marcos Otero (1:49.03), 36. Max Ayres (1:49.43), 47. Luka Samsonov (1:50.78)
5. Women's 50 Free- 11. Elli Williams (23.09), 17. Qunell (23.26), 19. Agata Naskret (23.28), 36. Lauren White (23.52)
6. Men's 50 Free- 27. Jameson McEnaney (20.10)
7. Women's 1000 Free- 6. Olivia Hansson (10:01.22), 19. Sydnee O'Neil (10:09.69)
8. Men's 1000 Free- 15. Gavin Anderson (9:14.00), 24. Jacob Troescher (9:16.45)
9. Men's 1-Meter Diving- Isaiah Cheeks, Jax Juarros, David Roethlisberger, Dawson Wilson (pending qualification)
10. Women's 200 Medley Relay- 1. CMU (1:39.97)
11. Men's 200 Medley Relay- 5. CMU (1:26.19)

Thursday

12. Women's 100 Butterfly- 13. Kiara Borchardt (54.72)
13. Men's 100 Butterfly- 24. Dejan Urbanek (48.00)
14. Women's 400 Individual Medley- 1. Nagy (4:11.00), 9. Bains (4:21.19)
15. Men's 400 Individual Medley- 1. Sampson (3:40.20), 27. Samsonov (3:57.14), 29. Troescher (3:57.61)
16. Women's 200 Free- 4. Qunell (1:48.37), 11. White (1:48.81), 12. Katerina Matoskova (1:48.91), 15. Hansson (1:49.50)
17. Men's 200 Free- 4. Aziz Ghaffari (1:34.98), 14. McEnaney (1:36.79), 22. Kiszczak (1:37.51), 32. Ayres (1:38.33), 48. Otero (1:39.75)
18. Women's 3-Meter Diving- Ally Hrncir Jenna Hurley, Mimi Licht, Kenya Meyer (pending qualification)
19. Women's 400 Medley Relay- 2. CMU (3:39.43)
20. Men's 400 Medley Relay- 6. CMU (3:10.83)

Friday

21. Women's 500 Free- 4. Hansson (4:50.67), 7. Matoskova (4:52.35), 11. Bains (4:55.11), 42. O'Neil (5:00.18)
22. Men's 500 Free- 11. Urbanek (4:24.99), 12. Ghaffari (4:25.00), 26. Troescher (4:27.71), 40. Anderson (4:30.64)
23. Women's 100 Backstroke- 1. Naskret (52.92), 4. White (54.04), 13. Matoskova (54.91)
24. Men's 100 Backstroke- 1. Sampson (45.80), 11. Andrew Scoggin (47.38), 15. Kiszczak (47.89)
25. Women's 100 Breaststroke- 21. Maddi Moran (1:03.13)
26. Men's 100 Breaststroke- 19. Ayres (54.02), 28. Otero (55.42)
27. Women's 200 Butterfly- 7. Nagy (2:00.19), 17. Borchardt (2:02.97), 21. O'Neil (2:03.21)
28. Men's 200 Butterfly- 4. Urbanek (1:45.75)
29. Men's 3-Meter Diving- Cheeks, Juarros, Roethlisberger, Wilson (pending qualification)
30. Women's 200 Free Relay- 4. CMU (1:31.83)
31. Men's 200 Free Relay-9. CMU (1:19.23)

Saturday

32. Women's 100 Free- 5. Qunell (49.96), 23. Williams (50.77)
33. Men's 100 Free- 19. McEnaney (43.96), 25. Ghaffari (44.37), 43. Kiszczak (44.95)
34. Women's 200 Backstroke- 1. Naskret (1:56.07), 4. White (1:57.84), 5. Matoskova (1:58.06), 31. Bains (2:02.31)
35. Men's 200 Backstroke- 1. Sampson (1:39.63), 5. Scoggin (1:44.02), 13. Samsonov (1:45.43)
36. Women's 200 Breaststroke- 5. Nagy (2:15.35), 19. Moran (2:17.86)
37. Men's 200 Breaststroke- 7. Otero (1:57.25)
38. Women's 1650 Free- 4. Hansson (16:40.22)
39. Men's 1650 Free- 18. Troescher (15:34.05), 21. Anderson (15:35.00)
40. Women's 1-Meter Diving- Hrncir, Hurley, Licht, Meyer (pending qualification)
41. Women's 400 Free Relay- 1. CMU (3:21.15)
42. Men's 400 Free Relay- 3. CMU (2:54.80)