GRAND JUNCTION, Colo.—  The Colorado Mesa University swimming teams set six school, five meet and three pool records and posted 30 NCAA Division II Championship qualifying times, including national-leading marks in all four relays during a phenomenal first session of the TYR/CMU Invitational on Wednesday night here in the El Pomar Natatorium.
 
The Mavericks won five of the six events during the main meet and then went on to post 12 more NCAA "B" cut marks in time trials while taking a big red pen to the Mavs' all-time top 10 performance list throughout the night.
 
In the process, the Mavericks opened up good leads in the team scoring chase with three full days of competition to go through Saturday evening.  The CMU women racked up 229 team points in the 200-yard medley relay, the 1,000-yard freestyle and the 800-yard freestyle relay and hold an 85-point lead over the Colorado School of Mines (144) and the rest of the 5-team field.  NCAA Division I Wyoming is in third place with 120 points while Division I Northern Arizona is fourth with 108, ahead of Utah, which scored 56.  Those Division I teams did not enter swimmers in the 1000 Free, which is only a Division II championship event, opening the door for the Mavs and Orediggers to score big points in what was the only individual discipline of the evening.
 
The CMU men scored 219 points in the same three events and lead Mines, which has 154 points, by 65.  Wyoming is third with 126 while a partial Utah Ute squad is fourth with 60.
 
The Mavericks were able to win three of the four relays and swept the 1000 Free events through junior Olivia Hansson and senior Jacob Troescher, who set one of the meet records.
 
The others came in the relays as the Mavericks opened the meet in the women's 200 medley relay with a pool, meet and CMU record time of 1:39.38 from Agata Naskret, Maddi Moran, Kiara Borchardt and Elli Williams.  That time leads the Division II performance list by nearly two seconds and eclipsed the record trifecta time of 1:39.97 that the same quartet had set at last year's invitational.
 
Naskret also set a new CMU 50 Backstroke record of 24.20 in the opening leg on Wednesday.
 
The Maverick men would not be outdone as Andrew Scoggin, Forrest Frazier, Dejan Urbanek and Harry Stacey cruised to the win in 1:24.66, which was well under last year's school, pool and meet record time of 1:26.19.   The Mavs also lead the Division II list by 2.11 seconds with that time.
 
Hansson then took the women's 1000 Free in a season-best10:19.09 (10:07.69-altitude adjusted) to defend her 2023 title while moving up two spots into third on the Division II season-long list.  Three other Maverick women in Sydnee O'Neil (10:23.30/10:11.90-converted), Haven Hinkle (10:29.72/10:18.32-converted) and Hanna Sasivarevic (10:32.54/10:21.14-converted) also set NCAA "B" Cut times as the Mavs took four of the top five and six of the top eight places.
 
The Mavs were even stronger in the men's 1000 Free as the Mavs took five of the top six places while six different swimmer set NCAA provisional qualifying times.  Troescher led the way in 9:17.14 to break the year-old meet record by 1.67 seconds while winning the event for the third straight year.  He also moved up two spots to second in program history with his converted time of 9:05.74 and sits second on the national list.
 
Fellow Maverick veteran Gavin Anderson took second place in a personal-best time of 9:22.56 (9:11.16-converted) and still sits third in program history and third in the nation.
 
Meanwhile, freshmen Alex Cooper (9:28.92/9:17.52-converted) and Braden Felio (9:30.59/9:19.19-converted) moved into the No. 6 and 7 spots of Maverick history with fourth and fifth place finishes, respectively, while junior Gavyn Tatge (9:30.73/9:19.33-converted) now ranks eighth in CMU lore after setting a personal-best of his own to take sixth place.

Freshman Miles Moran also added a NCAA provisional cut time of 9:40.58 (9:29.18-converted) to take 11th in the 2-heat event.
 
The action then returned to the relays as Grand Junction freshman Kendyll Wilkinson, junior Ada Qunell, junior Olivia Hansson and redshirt senior Katerina Matoskova pounded out a stellar and winning time of 7:17.55 in the 800 Free Relay.  That mark, converted to 7:12.75 at sea-level, broke last year's pool, school land meet record by 1.42 seconds and leads the country by an incredible 22-plus seconds.
 
Wilkinson also broke Qunell's 200 Free Maverick record with an opening leg split of 1:49.45 (1:48.25-converted) and moved into second place on the national performance list. 
 
Senior Sophia Bains also set a NCAA "B" cut time of 1:51.47 (1:50.27-converted) as the lead-off on the Mavs' "B" relay team that finished in 7:35.81, which would rank second nationally.
 
The Maverick men were not able to claim victory, but still managed a strong and Division II leading time of 6:32.51 (6:27.71-converted) to take second behind Wyoming, which won in 6:31.56. 
 
German freshman Richard Schmiedefeld led the Mavs off with an NCAA "B" 1:39.07 (1:37.87-converted) 200 Free split, which puts him seventh in CMU history for that discipline before Stacey, Dejan Urbanek and Jameson McEnaney all swam even faster relay split times.
 
Maverick senior Kuba Kiszczak also set a NCAA "B" cut mark of 1:39.14 (1:37.94-converted) on the Mavs' second squad, which touched third in 6:42.23 while placing fifth in the official standings.
 
After a brief intermission, the Mavericks continued the momentum in a series of time trials, highlighted by a new meet and school-record time of 53.41 seconds (53.31-converted) by Frazier in the men's 100 Breaststroke.  The Cal graduate transfer broke CMU program legend Mahmoud Elgayar's former school record by 0.09 seconds while also smashing the Egyptian's former meet record by 1.07 seconds.  Frazier and fellow CMU newcomer Ben Vester also set NCAA "B" Cut times in that race as Frazier moved into second on the Division II leaders list.
 
Scoggin (100 Fly), Max Ayres (200 Free), Jackson Moe (200 Back), Jason McMechan (200 Breast) and Mauricio Posadas (200 Breast) also set NCAA provisional qualifying and new or improved CMU top 10 times for the Maverick men during the time trials.
 
Kate Speerschneider (100 Breast), Anna Beck (100 Back), Sofia Shuler (200 Back) all did the same for the CMU women in their respective races while Maddi Moran and Antonia Leese both added NCAA provisional qualifying times in the 200 Breast as Leese moved into the No. 7 spot of Maverick history while Moran remained fourth.
 
The meet will continue on Thursday with preliminary heats at 10 a.m.  The evening finals session will begin at 5 p.m.