The Maverick swim team has once again won the RMAC in convincing fashion. The five-day competition saw the Mavericks set school and meet records galore, topping double-digit totals in each category on their way to victory.
This year Colorado Mesa University (CMU) became the first women’s program to ever win six RMAC titles while their male counterparts now hold the record for most consecutive men’s RMAC championship victories, with six of their own.
The Maverick women totaled 1,221 points over the course of the meet, beating out second-place Colorado School of Mines (Mines) by almost 600 points. The men totaled 1,153.5 points, with more than a 450-point gap between them and the second-place Mines.
CMU won 30 of the meet’s 42 events including all ten relay events in a suffocating victory that allowed their opposition no room for error. Seven different Maverick swimmers set school records at some point during the course of the meet.
Sixth-year redshirt senior Isaiah Cheeks took home the gold in the Men’s 1-meter diving and the silver in the 3-meter event, earning him Men’s Diver of the Meet honors and his fifth RMAC title. He finishes his illustrious career still holding the pool record for both the men’s 1- and 3-meter dive events.
With three national championships already to his name, Cheeks will go down as one of the best Maverick athletes of all time.
\\ Westin Winter for the Criterion
Sophomore Kenya Meyer set an RMAC record in her women’s 1-meter diving win while freshman Jenna Hurley won the women’s 3-meter event. The two split the Women’s Diver of the meet honors.
Redshirt Junior Ben Sampson, already one of the greatest Maverick swimmers ever, stamped his legacy even further with victories in all seven events he swam- four of them individual events. This performance earned him Swimmer of the Meet honors and a new program record for conference titles with 22.
“I’m proud and humbled to be able to do this,” Sampson said. “But our goals still haven’t been reached, so there’s still work to do.”
The goal Sampson is referring to is a national championship and this team is in incredible postition to do just that.
The women entered their stellar showing at the RMAC championships already ranked number one in the nation, while the men entered the week’s competition ranked fifth. A dominant performance like this will allow this team to carry serious confidence and momentum into March’s national championship meet.
“A national championship has been our goal the entire season. We’ve known what we were capable of, and we are one step away from achieving that goal,” Head Coach Mickey Wender said.
Wender is the engineer of this Maverick dynasty. He has built up a program that has completely bought into his vision and has won the RMAC more times than any other program in the conference’s history. And yet his program remains hungry for more, never satisfied with success.
At the end of this season, some Maverick greats will be gone. It is an unfortunate reality that rings true for all teams across all sports; father time is undefeated. But even though there will be decorated veterans departing, there are exciting, championship-caliber young talents on the rise as well. This program is a dynasty, and has all the markings of remaining so with a mix of important youth with championship pedigree and experience.
The only question that remains is how long until that hunger translates to a national championship. Is this year the year? Because to this point, the Mavericks have fallen just short and placed 4th for women and 5th for men last year. However, now that the women are ranked 1st and men 6th in the country, this seems to be the year that the Mavericks finally bring home the ultimate prize. Most teams spout championship aspirations preseason only to have been blowing smoke come the end of the year. Not this team. With this squad, where there’s smoke there is fire.
That fire will fuel a near-unstoppable force at the national championship that begins March 12, taking place in Ohio. A near-unstoppable force that knows just how close it is to becoming the first NCAA championship team in Colorado Mesa history.
