Both Maverick’s Men’s and Women’s Swim and Dive Teams finished day three of the Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference (RMAC) with sizeable leads.
The Colorado Mesa University (CMU) men’s team finished the day with 891 points with the Colorado School of Mines (CSM) in second with 658.5 points.
The women’s team had an even larger lead as they had registered 1020.5 points with CSM in second as well with 589.5 points. Both the men’s and women’s teams combined to win eight races as they are looking to win their fourth consecutive RMAC Championship.
The finals started with sophomore Katerina Matoskova winning the 500-yard freestyle with a time of 4:56.77. Junior Amelia Kinnard and senior Kelsea Wright took second and third in the race as well.
Victor Rosado and Chase Fields took first and second in the men’s 500-yard freestyle and Rosado picked up the first win for Oklahoma Christian University (OCU). Freshman Kuba Kiszczak took the final spot on the podium as he finished with a time of 4:33.15 to pick up 16 points for CMU.
In the 100-yard backstroke event, the Maverick women swept the podium for the second time of the finals. Junior Lauren White took first as she finished in just 55.08 seconds followed by Matoskova and junior Davy Brown who finished a second or less later. All three qualified for the B NCAA Division II B Standard and will travel to Greensboro, NC in March for the NCAA Championships.
The CMU men took the top three spots in the 100-yard backstroke as sophomore Ben Sampson finished first in 47.44 seconds. Sampson set the RMAC meet record in the event in the preliminaries as he finished in 47.31 seconds in the morning.
Senior Lily Borgenheimer broke her own RMAC Championship and El Pomar Natatorium records in the event with a time of 1:01.75 in the 100-yard breaststroke.
OCU’s JT Amrein followed Boregenheimer’s record-breaking swim by registering a pool and RMAC meet record in the 100-yard breaststroke. Amrein finished the event with a time of 53.14 beating out senior and former pool record holder Mahmoud Elgayar who finished in 54.50 seconds.
Cheyenne Parks recorded another pool record in the 200-yard butterfly as she finished in 2:02.03 which was just 64 hundredths of a second faster than the former pool record. Senior Bella Walters was the lone Maverick on the podium as she finished in third with a time of 2:09.10.
Freshman Dejan Urbanek took first place in the 200-yard butterfly as he finished with a time of 1:47.21.
CMU’s women’s divers took the top four spots in the one-meter diving event, and all of them qualified for the A NCAA D2 A Standard. senior Ali Lange took first place with 466.95 points. Senior Jolynn Harris finished in second place with 454.05 points and freshman Kyra Apodaca took the final spot on the podium with 441.25 points.
To finish day three of the RMAC Championships the CMU women’s 800-yard freestyle relay team won by 12 seconds. White, Wright, Matoskova and Borgenheimer were the four that made up the relay team, and they finished with a time of 7:28.37 and they qualified for the B NCAA D2 B Standard time to send themselves to the NCAA Championships.
OCU’s 800-yard freestyle relay team took first in the men’s relay event as they finished in 6:36.52. Brandon Heredia got them off to a good start finishing his 200-yard leg in 1:37.87 which was the fastest split time recorded in the event.
The final day of the RMAC Championships is Saturday, Feb. 12 with the finals starting at 5 p.m in El Pomar Natatorium.
