GRAND JUNCTION, Colo.— After finishing 2024 with multi-day invitational meets in November and December, the Colorado Mesa University swimming & diving teams will begin 2025 by returning to dual meet action when they head to Salt Lake City for a Friday afternoon encounter at Division I Utah.
Action in the Ute Natatorium will get underway at 1 p.m., a revised start time.
There will not be a live stream but action results can be tracked with a subscription to MeetMobile (Swimming) and through DiveMeets.com.
A full recap will also be posted on
www.cmumavericks.com on Friday evening.
Meet Format
The format for Friday's meet will be far from traditional and will include 13 total events, including 11 swim events, for each gender.
All five relay disciplines will be contested with the 200-yard medley, 800 free and 200 free relays kicking off the meet.
The Mavs and Utes will then contest the 800-yard freestyle although team points will also be awarded on a 5-3-1 basis to the top three swimmers at the half-way (400) mark of the race. The teams will then contest the 400 medley relay and the 400 individual medley.
Following a break, the teams will compete in skin races in the 100 IM, butterfly, backstroke and breaststroke. These events will feature six competitors and will be contested in an elimination style with the two slowest swimmers being eliminated from the second round. Two swimmers will then advance to the final round although it should be noted that Maverick Head Coach
Mickey Wender and his Ute counterpart Jonas Persson, have agreed to have the final round include one CMU and one Utah swimmer.
After another short break, the teams will then wrap up the dual with the 400 free relay.
Meanwhile, diving competition will be held concurrently with the standard 6-dive formats on both the 1 and 3-meter boards.
Wender talks more about the format in this week's media scrum.
Meet expectations
The Mavs will enter Friday's meet in the midst of a heavy training cycle after returning from the holiday break and are not focused particularly on fast times, but rather learning how to race tired to help simulate the grind of the upcoming 5-day Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference and NCAA Division II National Championships in February and March, respectively.
"We've got people who understand what it means to race tired and how to race at the peak of our training," Wender said.
"It's going to be an interesting format. We've always loved and performed well on our relays. We're looking forward to it. It will be hard and it's supposed to be."
Wender also discussed the team's recent training plans and noted, "They should be feeling a little fatigued but that type of discipline now gives them a lot of freedom later and I like what we're doing," he said.
Last Time Out
The Mavericks were last in action at the UNLV FINIS Invitational, contested in Las Vegas, Nevada from Dec. 16-18. The Maverick men took second out of seven teams with 867 points and defeated four Division I squads in Cal Poly, Cal Baptist, Pacific and Wyoming while taking second only to the host Rebels.
The Maverick men claimed five event wins and had the same number of second and third place finishes throughout the three-day meet, claiming three relay wins.
Andrew Scoggin won four total events, taking the 100 back while teaming with
Harry Stacey and a variety of others on three winning relay teams.
Dejan Urbanek also won the men 200 Fly.
Meanwhile, the CMU women took fourth out of eight teams and finished higher than three Division I squads.
Agata Naskret took victory in the 200 Back in a meet that was dominated by Division I power UCLA, the first Big Ten opponent the Mavs have ever competed against.
Complete recaps of each of the three days can be found at the links below.
Record Setting & Matching Relay efforts
The Maverick men's quartet of
Harry Stacey,
Jameson McEnaney,
Richard Schmiedefeld and
Andrew Scoggin matched a school record in the 200 Free Relay at the UNLV posting a winning time of 1:19.09, the exact same time that the same four swimmers in a different order had registered at the November TYR CMU Invitational.
Meanwhile, Stacey then came back to set a national-leading and CMU record with his opening leg 100 Free split of 42.84 seconds during the Mavs' winning 400 Free Relay effort of 2:54.91 at the end of the UNLV Invitational.
That time puts Stacey atop the NCAA Division II performance list and ranks him ninth in Division II history.
Top 10's
In addition to Stacey's 100 Free record, the Mavericks combined for six other times that sit amongst the CMU's all-time program top 10 performers list.
CMU sophomore
Sydnee O'Neil had a career meet and set three of those marks and ranks fifth in CMU history in the 1650 Free at 17:10.57 while sitting tenth in the in both the 500 Free (4:59.13) and 100 Fly (56.67).
CMU newcomers
Antonia Leese also now ranks fifth in CMU history for the 100 Breast at 1:03.78.
Meanwhile,
Forrest Frazier now ranks third in the men's 200 Breast at 1:58.15 while freshman
Richard Schmiedefeld is now tenth in the 200 Back at 1:48.62.
Back to No. 1
The Maverick women moved up five spots and back in to the No. 1 spot of the December edition of the monthly CSCAA Division II Top 25 Dual Meet polls,
which were released just two days after the UNLV meet on Dec. 20. The CMU men also moved up from the No. 6 spot to third.
Both Maverick squads also sit in the No. 1 spot of the NCAA Division II Swimcloud Championship rankings, which are based on time submitted to the website. The Maverick men are also ranked No. 1 in the Swimcloud Dual Meet Rankings.
Top-Ranked Mavs
Largely thanks to their performances at the TYR/CMU Invitational, the Mavericks have moved into the No. 1 spot of the Swimcloud NCAA Division II rankings in three of the four categories. The Maverick men lead both the dual and championship rankings, based on times and diving scores reported to the website. The Maverick women also lead the championship rankings and sit second behind only Indianapolis in the dual meet rankings.
The Maverick teams were both ranked sixth in the CSCAA's Top 25 Dual Meet polls in November, rankings that were published in the week prior to the TYR/CMU Invitational. A new edition of the monthly poll is slated for release next Friday (Dec. 20).
National Leaders
The Maverick women lead the Division II top times report in five different championship events with the
Agata Naskret leading the country in both the 100 and 200 Backstroke after winning both of those events at the 2024 national championships. She set a NCAA Division II record of 51.96 seconds in the 100 and leads the country by nearly a second with her converted time of 51.86. She also leads the 200 national performance list by an even wider margin of 1.07 seconds with her mark of 1:56.31.
The Mavs also have the fastest time in the country in the 800 Free (7:12.75), 200 Medley (1:39.38) and 400 Medley (3:39.57) relays.
The Maverick men also lead the country in the 200 Medley Relay (1:24.66) and have the fastest 100 Free swimmer in
Harry Stacey.
National Champions
The Mavericks swam to 11 national championships in 2023-24 after winning three events in the previous two years, which were the first swimming national titles in program history. The Maverick men have also won seven national diving event crowns since 2018.
The Mavericks will return one of their three individual national champions from 2024 in
Agata Naskret, who won both the 100 and 200-yard backstroke titles, doing so with school-record times.
Naskret was also a member of all three of the aforementioned championship winning relay teams, which all set school-records as well.
In total, the Mavericks return ten of the combined 12 legs from those relay teams this year.
Ada Qunell was also a member of all three winning relays while
Elli Williams swam on the 200 and 400 Free teams.
Maddi Moran and
Kiara Borchardt were the middle breaststroke and butterfly legs on the 400 Medley Relay squad.
However, the Mavs will have to replace some of the greatest swimmers in program history, who won titles last year.
Lauren White anchored the 200 and 400 Free Relay teams and ended her 5-year CMU career with 30 all-America honors.
The Mavs also graduated 200 and 400 IM champion
Benedict Nagy, who is now a volunteer assistant coach for the Mavs after using her fifth year of eligibility with the Mavs.
On the men's side, the Mavs will have to replace
Ben Sampson, who completed his bachelor's degree and his 4-year Maverick career with six national titles amongst a multitude of honors. Sampson is now using his COVID waiver and fifth season of eligibility at Division I Power Texas, under the direction of Coach Bob Bowman.
National Championship Run
Excluding, 2020 when the national championship meet was canceled 1 ½ days in due to the initial stages of the COVID pandemic, the Mavericks have won at least one national championship event every year since 2018, a streak they will hope to continue into 2025.
All-American List
The Mavericks roster or returning all-Americans is quite lengthy and impressive.
The Mavericks had 21 different individuals combine for 77 CSCAA All-America honors at last year's championships. The Mavericks return 14 of those people to this year's roster and have 17 total returning all-Americans on this year's roster, including two who earned honors in 2023.
The returning group from 2024 earned a combined total of 55 all-America honors last year, which go to the top 16 finishers in each event at the national championships, last season. The top eight finishers earn first team honors while the ninth through 16
th place finishers are Second Team/Honorable Mention selections.
Here's a list of CMU's returning all-Americans along with the number of honors each received in 2024 and the total number in their career.
Women
Sophia Bains (2/3)
Kiara Borchardt (3/6)
Olivia Hansson (2/5)
Katerina Matoskova (8/14)
Maddi Moran (4/5)
Agata Naskret (7/7)
Ada Qunell (5/9)
Elli Williams (4/4)
Men
Max Ayres (2/2)
Wyatt Hermanson (0/2)
Kuba Kiszczak (5/12)
Jameson McEnaney (4/4)
Jackson Moe (0/1)
Marcos Otero (1/1)
Austin Patterson (1/1)
Andrew Scoggin (4/5)
Dejan Urbanek (3/11)
RMAC Dual Streak
The Maverick women extended their RMAC dual meet winning streak to 36 with the convincing 174-27 and 174-26 wins over CSU Pueblo on both dates of the Intermountain Shootout weekend at the start of the season.
CMU's dual meet winning streak dates back nearly nine years to Jan. 22, 2016.
Those two decisions over CSU Pueblo are the only RMAC duals on the Mavs' 2024-25 schedule, which will be almost entirely against NCAA Division I competition in the leadup to the RMAC and NCAA Division II Championships.
The Maverick men are not slated to have any duals against RMAC foes this season although they finished well ahead of the Colorado School of Mines at the TYR/CMU Invitational. They have won 13 straight RMAC duals since the 2016-17 season.
The next time the Mavericks expect to see conference competition will at the RMAC Championships, which they will host from Feb. 11-15 in the El Pomar Natatorium.
CMU has swept the team titles at the last six RMAC Championships and were tabbed as favorites for their seventh straight titles in the preseason coaches' poll.
The Friendly Confines
The Mavericks will once again host the RMAC Championships, doing so for the sixth straight year in February (Feb. 11-15).
The Mavs also hosted the championship meet for five straight years from 2013-17 after first hosting in 2011.
Including the RMAC Championships, the Mavericks are slated to take full advantage of the top-level El Pomar Natatorium, as they will home for six different meets this year.
Up Next
The Mavericks will continue their season in two weeks at Air Force on Jan. 24 and 25, when they will swim against the host Falcons and the BYU Cougars.
