Courtesy: Colorado Mesa Athletics
GRAND JUNCTION, Colo.— Colorado Mesa University national champions Ben Sampson and Isaiah Cheeks put down some impressive markers, the biggest highlights of another impressive record-setting and national championship qualifying day of performances in the CMU Invitational swimming and diving meet, which continued Thursday here at the El Pomar Natatorium.
Sampson, the 2023 NCAA Division II National Champion in the 200-yard individual medley and 200-yard backstroke, broke his own, pool and meet records in the IM on two separate occasions, posting a time of one minute, 43.24 seconds in the final to move into the No. 3 position of NCAA Division II history even without the altitude-adjustment, that will lower his time to 1:42.04, which is believed to be the fastest in all of collegiate swimming so far this season.
He had swum to a time of 1:43.52 in the morning preliminary session, which was also good for the No. 3 spot in Division II history and well under his former record trifecta of 1:44.96 from last year’s meet.
Meanwhile, Cheeks, the 2022 NCAA Division II 3-meter diving champion, broke the Maverick, pool and meet record in Thursday’s 1-meter diving preliminaries, scoring 629.15 points on 11 dives before coming back minutes later to win the event with 592.20 points as one of six Maverick men and 11 total Maverick divers to reach the NCAA qualifying standard throughout an impressive day.
Cheeks’ score better the former CMU record of 624.80, set by 6-time NCAA Champion Ammar Hassan en-route to the 2018 national title. He also went past Hassan’s nearly 4-year old pool record of 623.17 and smashed the meet record of 599.95 points, which Hassan had posted at the 2018 edition of the CMU Invitational.
Those performances were far from the only highlights of the day as the Mavericks won a combined seven events while recording two other new school records. The Mavs also posted five pool and six meet records throughout the day and are still leading the team standings with two days of the meet to go.
The Maverick men won four of the five Thursday events while extending what was a 2-point Wednesday night lead through three events to a huge 325-point cushion over the Colorado School of Mines. CMU has 610 points while Mines has 295. Division I Wyoming is third in the 5-team field with 247.
Meanwhile, the Maverick women claimed three more event wins after sweeping Wednesday’s three events and still lead the 7-team pack with 441 points. Wyoming is second with 372 while Northern Arizona sits third with 292.
The Maverick women benefited significantly from the 3-meter diving event as they had all six entrants in the field, including winner Jenna Hurley, now assured of a spot at the national champions, and Kenya Meyer, who broke the school, meet and pool records in the preliminary round, held in the afternoon.
Those efforts helped the Mavericks overcome a relay disqualification at the end of the night, although that 200 free relay squad came back to set a meet and pool record in a time trial.
On the diving boards, Meyer set an 11-dive score of 522.20 points during the prelims, breaking Kelsey Vreeman’s school, pool and meet record of 509.25 points, set back in 2017. However, Hurley, who was second in the prelims at 505.65 points, came back to edge Meyer in the finals, winning the event with a score of 466.40 points, while Meyer took second at 464.05.
Ally Hrncir, Talia Datilio and Mimi Licht also set their first NCAA qualifying marks of the season in the afternoon session. They and Meyer now have one-half of the qualification process done and will need another such qualifying effort at a different meet in order to secure a spot in the NCAA Pre-Championship Qualification meet in Geneva, Ohio. Hurley had already set a 6-dive qualifying score earlier in the season and has now ticked off both requirements to earn the trip.
The Maverick men were just as good as Jax Juarros racked up his second needed qualifying score in the 3-meter, posting a score of 518.40 points to finish second behind Cheeks in the prelims before taking fourth in the final. Wyatt Hermanson, Ty Mitton, David Roethlisberger and Aiden Coon also all set their first of two needed qualifying scores throughout the day for diving coach Billy McGowan‘s unit.
Mitton (512.25) and Hermanson (510.30) improved upon their scores in the final to place second and third, respectively.
The Maverick swimmers were just as impressive and combined for 30 NCAA Championship “B” cut times while Sampson set his automatic qualifying time in the 200 IM.
The Maverick women had seven such qualifiers in the 500 free alone as school-record holder Olivia Hansson placed fourth in 4:56.80 (4:51.80-converted) while one of the most impressive meet and pool records went down. Northern Arizona’s Casey Craffey broke that record, hitting the NCAA Division I “B” cut with her record-setting time of 4:50.21, 0.90 seconds quicker than Mines standout Mia Woods, had set at the 2019 edition of the meet.
Meanwhile, Katerina Matoskova won the “B” final to place ninth overall in 4:57.35 (4:52.35-converted). Sophia Bains (4:59.75-converted), Gabrille Stanton (4:59.85-converted), Haven Hinkle (5:00.17-converted), Melaina Howard (5:02.61-converted) and Hanna Sasivarevic (5:04.04-converted) all set NCAA “B” cut times as well. Stanton now ranks ninth in program history while Hinkle improved upon her No. 10 ranking time.
The Maverick men were just as strong as Dejan Urbanek placed third in his bid for a third straight CMU Invitational win in the discipline. He posted a time of 4:29.99 (4:24.99-converted), joining Jacob Troescher, Aziz Ghaffari and Gavyn Tatge in the finals. Troescher finished fifth in 4:27.71 (converted) while Ghaffari took seventh after posting a NCAA provisional time of 4:29.63 (converted) in the morning prelims. Tatge was even quicker at 4:27.04 (converted) in the morning and placed eighth at night while Gavin Anderson turned in yet another “B” cut time of 4:31.29 (converted) to place second in the “B” final and tenth overall. Steffen Teutsch also won the “C” final in 4:34.28 (converted) to surpass the NCAA provisional standard.
Tatge now ranks fifth in CMU history while Troescher is sixth. Urbanek still sits second while Anderson was dropped two spots, but still tenth on Maverick all-time performers chart.
Meanwhile, in the women’s 200 IM, graduate transfer Benedict Nagy broke Lily Borgenheimer’s meet record in the prelims before lowering it even more to 2:00.85 to win the event by more than a second. Nagy now ranks second behind only Borgenheimer in CMU history with her converted and NCAA provisional qualifying time of 1:59.65. Ada Qunell also set a NCAA “B” cut time of 2:05.54 (2:04.34-converted) to place seventh.
Six Maverick men set NCAA “B” cut times in the men’s 200 IM as the Mavs had nine of the top 13 overall finishers. Mauricio Posadas won the consolation final to place ninth overall in 1:49.09 (converted) and now ranks eighth in program history.
John Walgast, Max Ayres, Aron Jonsson, Marcos Otero and Luka Samsonov all set NCAA “B” cut times as well during the day as Walgast, Ayres and Jonsson placed fifth through seventh after posting slightly quicker times during the morning session.
The Mavericks also fared well in the 50 freestyle events as Lauren White took the event win 23.52 seconds to rank sixth in program history. Meanwhile, Agata Naskret won the consolation final in 23.49 seconds and now sits fifth in CMU history. Elli Williams also set a NCAA “B” cut time of 23.67 seconds to place fourth.
In the men’s portion of the event, junior Austin Patterson emerged as one of the Mavs’ all-time best sprinters, winning the event by a wide margin in 20.11 seconds, taking over the third spot in program history. His NCAA provisional qualifying time came after a 20.25-second preliminary session time and led the Mavs to a 1-2-3 sweep in the event. Kuba Kiszczak (20.47) and Jameson McEnaney (20.53) took second and third. The Mavs also had three other “A” finalists while Jackson Moe won the consolation final to help the Mavs score 105 team points in that event alone.
After the diving final, CMU’s women’s 200 free relay team appeared to have broken the school, meet and pool records. However, the time was disallowed due to an early take-off, forcing the Mavericks to later swim a time trial to secure a national qualifying time. They had nearly as much success in that time trial as Qunell, Williams, Izzy Powers and Lauren White combined for a time of 1:32.17 to qualify for the 2024 national championships, just off the Maverick record of 1:32.12, which was good enough for runner-up status at last year’s national championships.
Qunell posted a NCAA “B” cut 50 free lead-off spit of 23.40 seconds in the time trial to move up a spot to third in program history after posting what appeared to be a school-record time of 23.26 before the disqualification took that apparent record off the board, allowing alumnae Ruby Bottai, who was in the crowd, to retain her school-record time of 23.32.
Wyoming won the actual event in 1:32.23, holding the pool and meet record for a matter of minutes before the Mavs’ time trial took that short-lived record down.
The Maverick men had way less drama as Sampson posted a NCAA qualifying 20.04 lead-off split as he, Kiszczak, McEnaney and Patterson combined for a national-qualifying and program, pool and meet record time of 1:19.23.
The meet will resume on Friday morning at 10 o’clock with preliminary action in the 100 butterfly, 400 IM, 200 free, 100 breast and 100 back as well as diving at noon. Those events plus the 400 medley relay will then be finalized in the 5 p.m. evening session, following a 4:45 p.m. CMU senior night recognition.