GRAND JUNCTION, Colo.— The Colorado Mesa University triathlon team will begin their pursuit of a sixth straight regional crown and for what has so far been an elusive national crown, when they begin the 2024 fall season at the Southern Hills Triathlon on Saturday morning near Hot Springs, South Dakota.
The Mavericks are one of six NCAA collegiate programs expected to compete in the collegiate wave, which will go off at 8 a.m.
The college sprint triathlon race is part of a morning-long triathlon community festival of events, including youth, age group and Olympic Distance waves.
A look at the course
Saturday's sprint race will feature a 375-meter swim off Breakers Beach followed by a 10-kilometer bike leg and 2.5K run in the Angostura State Recreation Area, half the distances of a normal collegiate race. The cycling and running segments are both on up-and-back course.
Course maps can be found here.
Who is Competing
The Mavericks plan to
send a majority of their full roster of 12 triathletes, including three who competed at the 2022 edition of the event, which was the lid-lifter on that season's campaign.
The Mavericks are slated to compete against Arizona, Black Hills State, Denver, South Dakota and TCU.
The top five finishers for each team will contribute to the team score while the sixth and seventh will displace scorers from other teams.
A Look Back
At the 2022 Southern Hills Triathlon, the Mavericks took second as a team in the unofficial team standings with 120 points, trailing only Denver (138), which swept the podium positions. Black Hills State (92 points) and Montana State-Billings (13) also competed that year.
The Mavericks had four finishers in the top 10, including three who are on this year's roster. Now junior
Nadine Klive led the Maverick contingent on that day (Sept. 3), placing fourth in her collegiate debut with a time of one hour, one minute, 4.8 seconds.
Josie Williams took seventh in 1:02:53.3 while
Torin Lackmann was eighth in 1:03:03.8.
That year's race was contested over a quarter-mile swim, 12-mile bike and 3.1-mile run, roughly double the distance of this year's event.
Mavs in Paris
Emma Meyers, one of the five new Mavericks on the roster, will not compete in South Dakota, but instead will be on a much bigger stage across the Atlantic Ocean in France. The freshman out of Pensacola, Florida will instead be representing Team USA in the 2024 Paris Paralympics.
The opening ceremonies for the Paralympics are on Wednesday can be seen on linear television on the USA Network and on the platforms of NBC/Peacock. Coverage will begin at 11 a.m. Mountain (1 p.m. EDT) with the ceremonies airing live an hour later. The ceremonies will also re-air on NBC in primetime on Friday evening at 7 p.m. MDT.
Meyers' PTS4 classification race will begin at 8:15 a.m. Paris time on Sunday morning (12:15 a.m. Mountain) and can be seen live on Peacock. CNBC also is scheduled to carry coverage of the paratriathlon events later that morning at 3 a.m. MDT.
Meyers and Maverick Head Coach
Jen Mathe recently participated in a press conference on the CMU campus,
which can be seen here.
More about Meyers' selection to Team USA and her background can be seen here.
When she does compete for the Mavericks, Meyers will become the first ever Paratriathlete to compete for an NCAA program at the varsity level.
Breaking Down the Roster
Jen Mathe, who begins her third season in charge of the Maverick program, returns seven triathletes to the 2024 roster and has added five new freshman.
Three All-America performers from a year ago return as the Mavs return four of their seven triathletes, including three of their top four finishers at last year's Women's Collegiate Triathlon National Championship race, where the Mavs finished third in the Division II Team Standings.
Highlighting the list is now fifth-year redshirt senior
Shannon Feran, who placed third at the national championships to earn her program record-setting third overall College Triathlon Coaches Association All-America honor. As the most decorated Maverick in program history, Feran is also CMU's first ever 2-time first team selection, an honor that currently goes to just the top seven finishers in each NCAA Division.
Senior
Torin Lackmann, who finished 12
th amongst Division II triathletes at last year's national championships and junior
Nadine Klive, who placed 19
th, also return after garnering second team and honorable mention all-America honors a year ago. Both were also all-Americans in 2022 as well with Klive claiming second team accolades that year as a freshman ahead of Lackmann, who was an honorable mention pick when she was a sophomore.
Fiona Graves was also on last year's national team, finishing in the top half of the overall field and 27
th amongst Division II finishers.
Feran also won the West Regional Qualifier individual title while leading the Mavs to a fifth straight regional title. She and Klive also earned all-region honors.
Now junior
Josie Williams also returns to the Maverick roster and should provide a big boost after missing nearly all of last fall due to injury. She earned CTCA Region Freshman of the Year honors and was an honorable mention all-American in her debut season in 2022.
Redshirt junior
Yoana Tohom and redshirt freshman
Audyn Setzer, who redshirted a year ago, also return to the 2024 roster as Maverick veterans. Setzer and Lackmann will be serving as CMU's captains this season.
Meanwhile, Mathe has brought in five new freshman.
In addition to the aforementioned
Emma Meyers, the Mavericks welcome in
Mariana Batarse Duenes, who hails from Torreón, Coahuila, Mexico and was ranked fifth in the 2024 Mexican Triathlon Rankings for the Women's 18-24 age group.
Mathe also successfully recruited triathletes from three other states from around the country in
Mackenzie Mayer (Moab, Utah),
Jaycee Stephens (Cadott, Wisc.) and
Shantelle Tupaz (Pleasanton, Calif.).
Mayer won the 2023 Utah High School State Championship and was the Grand County High School Female Athlete of the Year as a high school senior. She was also the 100-yard freestyle state champion in swimming for the Red Devils.
Stephens was a 7-time varsity letter-winner in her multitude of sports for the Cadott High School Hornets and earned six total all-conference honors. She was a 2-time state championship qualifier in track and field and placed third at the state track meet. She also was a 6-time state championship qualifier in swimming.
Tupaz is an Amador Valley High School graduate and has international experience representing the United States at the 2022 World Triathlon Age-Group Championships in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates. She took the silver medal in the 15-19 Super Spring Event and earlier helped the U.S. win the Mixed 15-19 relay world title at the 2022 Spring & Relay Championships in Montreal, Canda earlier that year.
World-Wide Mavs
The Maverick roster features triathletes from four different countries, including the United States, which makes up nine spots and three-fourths of the 12-person roster. That group hails from seven different states with only Colorado and Wisconsin contributing multiple triathletes (two each) to the Maverick roster. Other Mavericks hail from California, Florida, Iowa, Texas and Utah
The Mavericks also have a German representative in
Nadine Klive and also have representation from Guatemala (
Yoana Tohom) and Mexico (
Mariana Batarse Duenes) from the Central American portion of the world.
Powerhouse Program
As mentioned in the opening of this preview, the Mavericks have won all five possible West regional titles since 2018 under four different coaches, including Mathe who guided the team to the 2022 title in her first collegiate coaching meet before they were able to repeat in 2023, her first full season with the program. The Mavs also have gone on to place amongst the top four in Division II in each of the last five seasons, taking second in 2018 and in 2022 before finishing third a year ago. They were fourth in 2019 and 2021. There was no fall season in 2020, due to COVID.
They have also crowned 15 CTCA Division II All-Americans since first fielding a team in 2017 and have had three Regional Individual Champions and 18 CTCA All-Region selections.
A look ahead
Saturday's race is the first of five on the Mavericks' fall season schedule. They will be in action close to home next Saturday (Sept. 7), competing in the Desert's Edge Triathlon which has been moved to the Imondi Wake Zone in Fruita this year.
They will then race on Sept. 29 at TCU's Battle in the Fort Collegiate Cup in Fort Worth, Texas, which will help set the wave assignments for the Oct. 12 West National Qualifier in Springfield, Missouri, which in turn will sort things out for the Nov. 8 Women's Collegiate Triathlon National Championships, which will be held in Clermont, Florida this year after being held in Tempe, Arizona in the earlier years of the Mavs' program history.
