GENEVA, Ohio— Colorado Mesa University's Ben Sampson successfully defended his national throne minutes after Benedict Nagy claimed her crown as the Mavericks asserted their dominance of the 200-yard individual medley realm on Wednesday night, the second night of action at the NCAA Division II Swimming & Diving Championships.
 
The back-to-back wins and the men's and women's sweep highlighted a very regal and history-making night, the first time in program history that the Mavs have won two individual titles on the same evening.
  Nagy, a graduate transfer from Division I Nevada in her hometown of Reno, set a CMU record of one minute, 58.63 seconds, breaking the former altitude-adjusted record of 1:59.20 that was held by Lily Borgenheimer, which until Wednesday night was the only Maverick women in any sport to win an individual NCAA Division II title.  Borgenheimer won the 2022 title in her best event, the 200-yard breaststroke.
 
Nagy, who was the national No. 1 seed coming into the meet, led from wire-to-wire in Wednesday's race, winning by more than a second over the University of Indianapolis' Celina Schmidt, who touched in 1:59.68.  Nagy also moved into the No. 9 position in Division II history with her time.
 
Sampson, the reining national champion in both the 200 IM and 200 backstroke, was even more dominant in the men's half of the event, winning in 1:41.92, breaking his own school record while moving into the No. 2 time of NCAA Division II all-time history.  He also led after every leg and won the event by nearly two seconds (1.86) while going an incredible 2.41 seconds faster than he did en-route to his 2023 national title win.
 
The Arvada, Colorado redshirt junior is the only Maverick men's swimmer to win a national title, something he has now done three times in the last two seasons.
 
The Maverick men have also had two divers win seven combined NCAA titles, including Isaiah Cheeks, who turned in another all-America winning performance with a fifth place finish in the 1-meter springboard competition on Wednesday.
 
Meanwhile, sophomore Elli Williams broke her own school-record to finish in a sixth place tie in the 50-yard freestyle while she anchored the Mavs' women's 200-yard medley relay team to a third place finish.  Olivia Hansson also recorded a podium finish, taking seventh in the 1,000-yard freestyle, the first event of the night.
 
The Mavs also picked up some points in the consolation finals as Sophia Bains took second in the heat and tenth overall in the 200 IM while Lauren White and Agata Naskret were part of a 4-way tie for 12^th in the 50 free.
 
The Maverick men also finished tenth in the 200 medley relay.
 
Claiming seven first team and ten total all-America honors while scoring well in every event throughout the night, the Maverick women are tied for second place in the team standings with Drury at 124 ½ points.  The Mavs and Panthers trail only defending national champion Nova Southeastern, which went 1-2-5 in the 1,000 free before picking up third and fifth place finishes in the 200 IM and a second place tally in the 200 medley relay.
 
The Sharks have 155 points through five women's events. 
 
UIndy is fourth with 105.
 
Meanwhile, the Maverick men have 76 points to sit in fifth place in the team standings.  Tampa leads the way with 158 points while Drury is second with 135.  Defending national champion UIndy is third with 122 after winning three of the five events contested on Wednesday.
 
Hansson was the first Maverick in the water during the evening session and posted a season-best time of 10:01.11, the fastest actual time in program history.  The sophomore from Kivik, Sweden was seeded sixth coming into the meet also holds the CMU altitude-adjusted school-record of 9:54.81, set at the 2023 RMAC Championships that CMU hosted.  Hansson now has three career all-America certificates, including two first team honors, which go to the top eight individual finishers.
 
Freshman teammate Sydnee O'Neil ended up 37^th in the event at 10:27.99 in her NCAA Championship debut, which came in the morning session.
 
Nagy, who helped the Mavs to a second place finish in the 800 free relay on Tuesday night, then claimed her 200 IM victory just after Bains posted a time of 2:02.31 to move up to third in program history.

Following, Sampson's victory, the Maverick women shined in the 50 free as White and Naskret both posted times of 23.27 seconds, which is a new personal-best for Naskret.  White's time was just off her preliminary round time of 23.26, which put her into a tie for second on the Maverick all-time performers list.
 
White, who was ranked just now has a CMU all-sports record 25 career all-America honors while Naskret picked up her first of what could be many this week.
 
Williams then went even quicker in her first NCAA Championship final, tying for sixth in 23.01 seconds, lowering her RMAC-title winning and school-record time of 23.09 from last month.  The sophomore out of Bend, Oregon was ranked 11^th on the pre-meet psych sheets then posted a solid 22.78-second relay split in the medley relay after Naskret, Maddi Moran and Kiara Borchardt all posted impressive backstroke, breaststroke and butterfly legs that were amongst the best in the field.
 
Moran now has two career first team all-America certificates while Borchardt claimed her third medley relay honor and fourth overall all-America certificate.
 
Before that race, Cheeks scored 496.40 points in the 1-meter diving competition, placing fifth to claim his seventh career All-America honor.
 
Teammate David Roethlisberger finished 17^th in the afternoon preliminaries, barely missing out on a first career all-America athlete by just two tenths of a point.  Roethlisberger scored 392.45 points on 11 dives.
 
The Mavs then capped the night in the men's 200 medley relay as Andrew Scoggin, Max Ayres, Dejan Urbanek and Kuba Kiszczak finished tenth in 1:26.91.  Scoggin, who swam the backstroke leg in a personal-best smashing 21.57 seconds, now has two career all-America certificates to his credit.  Ayres, a freshman claimed his first, while Urbanek picked up his second relay honor of the young week and tenth of his career.  Kiszczak now has eight.
 
The national meet, being contested her in the SPIRE Institute, will continue on Thursday morning at 10 a.m. EDT (8 a.m. Mountain) with preliminary heats in the 100 fly, 400 IM and 200 free. 
 
Nagy and Sampson are the top seeds in the 400 IM as well.