GRAND JUNCTION, Colo.— The Colorado Mesa University Mavericks, gunning for a seventh straight title sweeps, won all four relay races they were involved in and opened up team-scoring leads after the Day 1 of the 2025 Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference Swimming & Diving Championships, which got underway Tuesday evening here in the El Pomar Natatorium.
 
The Mavs were able to defend their conference titles in both the men's and women's 800-yard freestyle relays and also won the "B" heats in both those events as the nation's top-ranked CMU women racked up 64 points in the lone event of the night, 10 clear of Simon Fraser after out-dueling the Red Leafs in both women's races.
 
The CMU men, ranked second according to the Swimcloud NCAA Division II Championship rankings and fourth in the CSCAA Top 25 Dual Meet Poll, scored 58 points and have a 12-point cushion over Simon Fraser and the Colorado School of Mines, who are tied for second with 46.
 
The Maverick men were in second after the opening leg of the championship heat but took the lead for good on the opening lap of the second leg thanks to freshman Richard Schmiedefeld and never looked back as the quartet of Kuba Kiszczak, Schmiedefeld, Dejan Urbanek and Max Ayres posted a winning time of six minutes, 36.29 seconds to win over Simon Fraser by 2.14 ticks.
 
Urbanek has now won 12 RMAC titles, including six relay golds, in his Maverick career.  Fellow senior Kiszczak now has five RMAC relay titles while Ayres, a sophomore, won his third.  Schmiedefeld, a freshman from Stuttgart, Germany, was in his first conference championship race.
 
Meanwhile, the Mavs' "B" team of Braden Felio, Jackson Moe, Jacob Troescher and Gavin Anderson were just as dominant in the earlier heat, posting a time of 6:43.63 to beat Mines' secondary squad by 2.33 seconds.
 
The CMU women had to come from behind on the final leg of the women's championship heat as junior Olivia Hansson bettered her Simon Fraser anchor leg counterpart Alyssa Whitmore by 1.62 seconds, flipping what was a 0.80-second Red Leaf advantage at the 600-yard mark.
 
Hansson, who now has six RMAC career titles in three years to her credit posted a 1:49.27 anchor split, allowing the Mavs to finish in 7:19.60, less than a second ahead of the Red Leafs who took second in 7:20.42.
 
SFU got out to an early 2 ½-second lead as 2024 RMAC Championship Swimmer of the Meet Tori Meklensek laid down an impressive and RMAC-leading 1:47.86 (1:46.66-altitude adjusted) 200 Free opening split as the Mavs were in third place after freshman and school-record holder Kendyll Wilkinson's 1:50.03 split (1:48.83-altitude-adjusted)
 
However, fifth-year Maverick senior Katerina Matoskova, a winner of a dozen conference golds, then put the Mavs into second place after the opening lap of her leg as the Mavs bridged the overall gap to 1.45 seconds by the end  of the leg.  Junior Ada Qunell, who has now won six relay and eight overall RMAC titles, then turned in a 1:50.47 third leg as she brought the Mavs within 0.80 seconds before Hansson powered the Mavs to victory.
 
Earlier, CMU's "B" squad of Sophia Bains, Hanna Sasivarevic, Sydnee O'Neil and Haven Hinkle combined for a time of 7:29.52, winning the heat by a dominant 4.73 seconds over the Red Leafs' secondary unit. 
 
Notably, Bains turned in a career-best 200 free time of 1:50.49 (1:49.29-converted) to improve her NCAA Division II Championship provisional qualifying time while moving into fifth on the Mavs' all-time performance charts, ahead of Hansson.
 
After collecting their gold medals on the podium, the Mavs then turned their attention to time trials as 17 CMU swimmers competed in a series of 11 races.
 
Five of those CMU swimmers turned in NCAA Division II Championship provisional qualifying times with Kiara Borchardt starting it out with a season-best and improved NCAA "B" cut time of 54.66 seconds (54.56-converted) in the 100-yard butterfly.
 
Tori Bartusiak then finished the women's 100 free in 51.68 (51.58-converted) before Holden Convertino led three Maverick men in that discipline with a time of 44.90 seconds (44.80-converted). 
 
Sofia Shuler then bested the NCAA "B' standard) in the women's 200 backstroke, touching in 2:03.42 (2:02.22-converted) before Deklan Heinzen did the same in the men's 200 breaststroke, finishing in 2:00.94 (1:59.74-converted).
 
Wednesday's portion of the meet with begin at 10 a.m. with preliminary heats in the 200 individual medley and 50 free as well as the slower sections of the 1,000 freestyle.  Women's 1-meter diving preliminaries will begin at 2 p.m. while the finals of that and the other Day 2 events will get underway in the 5:30 p.m. evening session.