GRAND JUNCTION, Colo.— The Colorado Mesa University women's triathlon team will open up the 2026-27 season on Tuesday, competing virtually against three other teams while giving on-campus fans a rare opportunity to watch the nationally-ranked Mavericks in action.
Tuesday's event, titled the D2 Virtual Invitational, will be held on the first day that NCAA Division II teams are allowed to compete this season. Action will begin at 5 p.m. in the El Pomar Natatorium, where all 11 Mavericks on the roster are slated to compete.
They will swim 200 yards in the pool before transitioning to stationary bikes, equipped with tracking software, where they will ride four miles along a virtual course. The Mavs will then run out of the pool at the southeastern end of the facility before running a 1-kilometer course around campus.
Maverick Coach
Jen Mathe expects the race to take around 15 minutes.
Three of the nation's top four and four of the top eight Division II teams in the national preseason poll will duke it out for top honors as triathletes from No.1 Wingate, No. 3 Drury and No. 8 Emmanuel will also be racing on Tuesday in their own locales.
Mathe and her fellow coaches colleagues will then submit their athletes' times. Individual standings and team scores will then be calculated.
The Mavericks competed in a similar event in the spring exhibition season and swept the top five places while handily defeating NCAA Division III foes Central College and Trine University in the team standings.
A look back
The Mavericks enjoyed another strong season in 2025 and capped the year with a fourth place finish in the Division II portion of the standings at the Women's Collegiate Triathlon National Championships. The Mavs also took second amongst Division II teams at the West Regional Championships.
The Mavs crowned two honorable mention All-Americans through the national meet in
Shantelle Tupaz, who returns for her 2026 junior campaign, and
Nadine Klive, who finished her career as one of just three 3-time all-Americans in program history.
At the regional level,
Alexandra Schipai, who also returns in 2026, was the West All-Region Freshman of the Year and was joined on the All-West Region team by Tupaz and Klive.
In the Polls
The Mavericks were picked fourth in the Collegiate Triathlon Coaches Association's NCAA Division II Preseason Poll,
which was released last Monday (Aug. 24). The top five spots of the poll were a duplicate of the teams' 2025 national championship finishes and saw Lenoir-Rhyne, Wingate and Drury top the poll ahead of the Mavs. Cal Poly Humboldt was picked fifth, right behind the Mavs.
Black Hills State, UIndy, Emmanuel, Newberry and Concord were in the bottom half of the top-10 poll.
Roster Breakdown
The Mavs return eight triathletes from their 2025 roster this season and have added three freshman from three different countries.
The Mavs do not have any seniors but have five juniors and three sophomores on the squad.
The Mavs have eight Americans from seven different states but do not have any from Colorado. The state of Utah contributes two members (
Mackenzie Mayer,
Kaia Merrill) to the 2026 Maverick roster, while California (
Shantelle Tupaz), Florida (
Emma Meyers) , Indiana (
Maddie Cox), Texas (
Macy Arch), Virginia (
Sylvie Aardema Gagnon) and Wisconsin (
Jaycee Stephens) all have one representative.
They also have three international athletes in sophomore
Alexandra Schipai from Estonia, who is joined by freshmen
Rosa Schmidt-Moll, who hails from Austria, and
Tippi Wieland, who comes from Australia.
Meet the Newcomers
Jen Mathe recruited three freshman for the 2026 season.
Maddie Cox was 2-time track and cross country state champion at Carmel High School in her home state of Indiana. She finished fourth at the 2025 junior national championships in the super sprint race and is ranked 56
th in the 2026 Junior Elite National rankings.
Rosa Schmidt-Moll comes to CMU from Kitzbühel, Austria and placed third at the junior level of her national championships in 2025 before taking the national Coss-Triathlon and Winter Triathlon (Run, Bike Ski) Championships. She also took seventh overall and second in the junior division of the World Winter Triathlon Championships in Padora, Italy.
Tippi Wieland comes to CMU from Vaucluse, New South Wales, Australia and has a running and swimming background. She was the overall cross country, athletics (track & field) and swimming champion at Snow Mountains Grammar School. She also placed sixth at the Gold Coast Half Marathon and in the same overall position at the Australian Surf Life Saving Championships.
Award Streaks
The Mavericks will enter the 2026 season in hopes of continuing their award-winning ways.
The Mavs have crowned multiple all-Americans in each of the last five seasons dating back to 2021 and have claimed 19 total all-America honors in that stretch. Two current Mavericks in
Mackenzie Mayer and
Shantelle Tupaz are a part of that group after both earned honorable mention All-America honors in 2024 and 2025, respectively.
The Mavs have also had at least one all-region performer in each of the last eight seasons since and including 2017 and have had multiple performers in all but one year of that stretch.
The youth movement has also been strong with six different Mavericks earning the CTCA Region Freshman of the Year honors in the last seven seasons. Tupaz (2024) and Alexandria Schipai (2025) are current Mavericks to have earned that honor.
Tupaz has been an all-region performer in each of the last two years while Schipai earned that honor last year.
Double-Duty Week
The Mavericks will compete twice in the opening week of the season, heading to Hot Springs, South Dakota for Saturday's Southern Hills Collegiate Cup after the Tuesday virtual race.
Saturday's event, slated for a 7:15 a.m. start will be a sprint format with a 375-meter swim, 10-kilometer bike and 1.55 mile run and will be held in the Angostura Recreational Area in the Black Hills.
The Full Schedule
After the busy opening start, the Mavericks will be off for three weeks before returning to action with their main home race of the season, the Desert's Edge Collegiate Cup at and around Highline Lake State Park in Loma on Sept. 27. They will then send a smaller squad to Arizona's Dual in the Desert in Tucson on Oct. 10.
The Mavs will then head to the Women's Collegiate Triathlon West Regional Championships in Fort Worth, Texas on Oct. 18 before returning to Arizona and city of Tempe for the Nov. 8 national championships.
