EVANSVILLE, Ind.— The Colorado Mesa University Mavericks qualified three men for the championship finals while Melaina Giraudeau reached the consolation final in the women's 200-yard individual medley after a multitude of season and career-best performances in the Wednesday morning preliminary session of the NCAA Division II Swimming & Diving Championships here at the Deaconess Aquatics Center.
 
Maverick sophomore Ben Vester set a career-best time of one minute, 45.34 seconds in the men's 200-yard individual medley and qualified sixth for Wednesday night's finals.  His time was a full 1.9 seconds quicker than his previous season and career-best of 1:47.24 (altitude-adjusted) that he used to win the Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference title last night.  He was seeded 19^th coming in and also moved two spots to second on CMU's all-time performance list behind only former 6-time national champion Ben Sampson.
 
Teammates Micah Moore, Aron Jonsson and Luka Samsonov finished 23^rd, 27^th and 32^nd, respectively.  Jonsson shaved a hundredth of a second off his former career-best and won his heat in 1:48.94.  Moore finished in 1:48.20 while Samsonov touched in 1:49.69.
 
Meanwhile, in the 50-yard freestyle, Guillaume Guth and Richard Schmiedefeld set new career-bests to qualify fourth and fifth, respectively.  Guth finished in 19.54 seconds, two hundredths better than his seed time while Schmiedefeld touched in a 19.57 seconds, nearly a half-second quicker than his seed time of 20.05 that had him 25^th on the pre-meet psych sheet.  The German sophomore's time was also well quicker than his 2024-25 season best of 19.86.
 
CMU's Oskar Sawicki also won his heat in a career-best of 19.86 seconds and finished 17^th in the preliminary heats.  He will be the first alternate for Wednesday's final after coming in to the meet ranked 26^th.  Marcos Otero, who scratched out of the 200 IM, also had a career-best of 19.88 while going under 20 seconds for the first time in his career.  He is the second alternate for Wednesday's finals after coming in seeded 33^rd at 20.25.
 
Sawicki now ranks fourth in CMU history while Otero is the sixth Maverick to break the 20-second mark.
 
Giraudeau also shaved three tenths of a second off her seed time in the women's 200 IM, qualifying ninth in 2:03.05 to grab the top seed in the consolation final.  She continues to rank sixth in CMU history.
 
Teammate Taylar Hooton finished 28^th (2:05.19) while freshman Abby Uhl finished 38^th (2:07.40) in her NCAA Championship debut.
 
In the women's 50 free, Ada Qunell finished 24^th in 23.40 seconds while Tori Bartusiak finished 35^th in 23.73 seconds.
 
At the end of the session, the Mavericks had four women and two men in the early sections of the 1,000 freestyle.
 
Hanna Sasivarevic currently stands in fifth place and will be guaranteed of at least 13^th place points and a second team all-America honor after she posted a time of 10:12.12.
 
Melaina Howard is in 15^th place after recording a time of 10:18.83, just off her altitude-adjusted career-best of 10:17.31.  She was seeded 31^st coming in and will finish at least eight spots higher than that.
 
Sydnee O'Neil was just behind with a time of 10:18.86 and currently is in 16^th place.  Maya Clise is in 24^th with her time of 10:33.03.
 
On the men's side, Gavyn Tatge is in 16^th place with a time of 9:19.72 while Ethan Gluck is in 22^nd at 9:25.58.
 
The top eight seeds, including CMU's Olivia Hansson, will swim at the start of the finals session.  Hansson is seeded third.
 
Men's 1-meter diving preliminaries begin at 1 p.m. CDT (Noon Mountain) while the finals session will get underway at 5:30 p.m. CDT (4:30 p.m. Mountain).