2024 CMU Invitational
- November 20-23, 2024
- Grand Junction, Colo.
- SCY (25 yards)
- Live Results
- Full Results (PDF)
- Final Team Scores
Courtesy: Wyoming Athletics
GRAND JUNCTION, Colo. (11/23/24) – The University of Wyoming swimming and diving teams completed the Colorado Mesa Invite and SMU Invitational.
The Cowgirls won the CMU Invite with 1,119.5 points, beating out Colorado Mesa, Northern Arizona, Colorado School of Mines and a partial squad from the University of Utah. The Cowboys took second with 875.5 points.
Head Coach Dave Denniston couldn’t have been more pleased with how his team performed over the last four days.
“We had an absolutely fantastic week of racing,” Denniston said. “I don’t know how many best times and personal records were set by the Cowboys and Cowgirls, but it was a lot. We are coming home with a lot of confidence and happy swimmers and coaches. The season is only getting better from here.”
Tonight, the Cowgirls had four first-place finishers and several other top finishes as well. The Cowboys also had a good night with some high finishes.
Freshman sensation Macey Hansen took first in the 1650-yard freestyle with a time of 16:44.09.
Jakub Rynkiewicz and Derek Long went two and three in the 1650-yard freestyle with respective times of 15:48.41 and 15:52.14.
Heidi Billings came in third in the 200-yard backstroke, logging a time of 1:59.72.
Wyoming natives Tara Joyce and Brynlee Busskohl each turned in a first-place performance. Joyce won the 100-yard freestyle with a time of 49.86. Busskohl won the 200-yard breaststroke, logging a time of 2:15.98.
Rachael Horne also put in a third-place performance in the 100-yard freestyle, swimming a time of 50.83.
In the 200-yard butterfly, Ellie Fritscher took second with a time of 2:03.53.
Gavin Smith came in first in the 200-yard butterfly, swimming a 1:46.97.
The Cowgirls also set a pool record in the 400-yard freestyle relay with a collective time of 3:21.26, swam by Veronika Ozimek, Lauren Swartz, Horne and Joyce.
The Cowboys took second in the 400-yard freestyle relay, with Caleb Ozenne, Quinn Teller, Luke O’Connor and Smith collectively swimming a 3:00.66.
On the diving side of things at the SMU Invitational, Jonah Mann and Alicia Gonzalez were the only Pokes to advance to the finals round on platform. Mann took sixth with 220 points while Gonzalez took eighth with 200.45 points.
Wyoming swimming and diving will close out the 2024 calendar year at the UNLV Invite December 16-18.
Courtesy: CMU Athletics
GRAND JUNCTION, Colo.— Harry Stacey, Olivia Hansson and Marcos Otero all broke school records as the Colorado Mesa University swimming teams also combined for three pool and four more meet records on another fine day of performances at the TYR/CMU Invitational, which concluded on Saturday evening at the El Pomar Natatorium.
The Maverick men won five of the night’s six events and rolled away with the meet win for the eighth straight year with 1,425 points, 549 ½ more than second place and NCAA Division I Wyoming. The Colorado School of Mines took third with 573 while a partial Utah team was fourth with 257 ½.
The Maverick women also picked up an event win from Agata Naskret, who broke the pool record and the meet record twice throughout the day in the 200-yard backstroke after setting the NCAA Division II National record in the 100-yard distance on Friday.
However, the Mavericks were not able to keep pace with Wyoming, which won its’ first CMU Invitational title since 2014 while snapping the Mavs’ streak of seven straight titles since 2016.
Wyoming tallied 1,119 ½ points while the Mavs cleared the 1,000 mark for the seventh straight year with 1,009. Northern Arizona, winners of the last 11 Division I Western Athletic Conference titles finished third with 638 ½ while Mines took fourth (405), ahead of Utah (243).
Stacey, a 2024 Olympian for the nation of Ghana, capped a stellar meet by winning two events and setting multiple records. In the 100 freestyle prelims, he blazed to an NCAA Championship automatic qualifying time of 43.05 seconds (42.95-converted), smashing the 10-year old pool record of 43.40, set by Nick Soedel of Utah in 2014. Stacey also went more than a second under the former meet record of 44.07 in the morning heats before coming back to win the final in 43.62 seconds as the Maverick men swept the top three places.
In the process, he also broke the former CMU school record of 43.41 seconds, set by 2024 Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference Freshman of the Year Jameson McEnaney, who took second on Saturday in 44.27 seconds after posting an even better NCAA “B” cut time of 44.08 in the prelims.
Kuba Kiszczak finished third in 44.79 seconds (44.69-converted) and joined Richard Schmiedefeld, and Holden Convertino as other NCAA provisional championship qualifiers.
Meanwhile, the in the first race of the evening session, Hansson broke her own school-record in the women’s 1,650 free with a time of 16:58.56 (16:38.56-converted), going under her former altitude-adjusted school record of
16:40.22, which came at the 2024 RMAC Championships. She took third in a thrilling race that saw Wyoming’s Macey Hansen come from behind to defeat meet and pool record holder Casey Craffey of Northern Arizona. Hansen won in 16:44.09 while Craffey was just 0.48 seconds behind as both talents set NCAA Division I Championship provisional qualifying times.
Hansson was a high level Division II provisional qualifier as was Maverick sophomore Hanna Sasivarevic, who won an equally thrilling morning heat in 17:28.23 (17:08.23-converted) to place fifth overall. She also moved into the No. 3 spot of Maverick history.
Hansson also ended the meet by scoring 67 team points, to earn the unofficial high-point award.
The Maverick men were even more successful in the 1650 free as Jacob Troescher claimed his second event win of the meet while claiming men’s high point honors with 69 points.
The senior out of Boise, Idaho, seized control of the race early and finished in a career-best 15:36.97 (15:16.97-converted) while joining Gavin Anderson, who finished fourth in a career-best 15:53.72 (15:33.72-converted) as NCAA “B” cutters. Troescher won the race by 11.44 seconds.
CMU freshmen Braden Felio (15:55.65/15:35.65-converted) and Alex Cooper (15:59.33/15:39.33-converted) also set NCAA provisional qualifying times to take fifth and sixth, respectively. Felio now ranks sixth in CMU history, one spot behind Anderson while Cooper now ranks eighth.
Troescher is still third in CMU lore.
Naskret the won the 200 Back in 1:57.51 (1:56.31-converted) to lead Division II by 1.73 seconds. Her time was a ½ second quicker than the 2016 pool record of 1:58.01, set by former CMU great Mary Saiz. Naskret also set a new meet record in the final after edging Katerina Matoskova’s mark of 1:58.32 by a single one hundredth in the prelims.
All was not lost for Matoskova, who took second in the event with a solid NCAA “B” cut mark of 1:59.37 (1:58.17-converted). Sophia Bains also added a provisional qualifying time of 2:01.95 (2:00.75-converted) to move into the No. 8 spot of program history while finishing sixth.
Maverick men’s team captain Andrew Scoggin then completed a backstroke double with the men’s win in 1:44.80. He had posted a preliminary round and career-best time of 1:44.55 (1:43.35-converted) and will sit as high as second on the national list.
The CMU men had the top three and four of the top five finishers in the event as Luka Samsonov took second behind Scoggin in 1:46.75 after going slightly faster (1:46.68) in the morning. Jackson Moe finished third in 1:48.49. while Jeremy Koch took fifth in 1:49.71 after setting a NCAA “B” cut time of 1:47.84 (1:46.64-converted) in the morning.
The women’s 100 free was next and saw junior Ada Qunell take second in 50.55 seconds (50.45-converted) as one of CMU’s three NCAA “B” qualifiers. Elli Williams set such a time of 51.35 (51.25-converted) in the morning prelims to reach the “A” final, before finishing eighth.
Meanwhile, freshman Kendyll Wilkinson set another NCAA provisional qualifying time of 51.66 (51.56-converted) to finish 11th overall and third in the consolation final.
The next women’s event was the 200 Breast, which saw Maddi Moran take eighth after setting a NCAA “B” cut intermediate split of 1:03.72 (1:03.62-converted). Minutes earlier, Antonia Leese and Kate Speerschneider took the top two spots in the “B” final with provisional qualifying times as well. Leese touched in 2:19.04 while Speerschneider moved in to the No. 9 spot of program history, two spots behind Leese, with a mark of 2:20.76 (2:19.56-converted). Leese had set a better time trial mark of 2:18.95 (2:17.75-converted) on Friday.
The Maverick men added a meet and school record in the 200 Breast as Otero crushed Mahmoud Elgayar’s 5-year old mark with a time of 1:58.03 (1:56.83-converted) during the prelims before coming back to win the event in 1:59.16.
Otero also set a new altitude-adjusted school-record, going under his sea level career-best of 1:57.03 by two tenths.
Maverick newcomer Deklan Heinzen took second in the final and had a pair of NCAA “B” cut efforts throughout the day, including his prelim mark of 2:00.62 (1:59.42-converted). Max Ayres (2:01.40/2:00.20-converted) and Lucas Motley (2:01.43/2:00.23-converted) also had NCAA “B” cut marks in the morning before Motley finished fifth in the final. Ayres was seventh behind another CMU freshman in Brodie Khajuria.
Tori Bartusiak then led the Maverick women in the 200 fly, finishing third in 2:03.71, after setting the top morning time of 2:03.29 (2:02.09-converted) to put her name on the national provisional qualification list. Amber Siverts and Kiara Borchardt also qualified for the “A” final while Sydnee O’Neil won the “B” heat.
The Maverick men then followed that up with second and fifth place finishes in the same discipline as Dejan Urbanek touched in 1:47.54 (1:46.34-converted) to take second and rank as high as fourth nationally. Graduate transfer Jason McMechan finished fifth in 1:50.14 (1:48.94-converted), which was also good for a NCAA “B” cut time.
Notably, Gavyn Tatge also won the consolation final in a career-best 1:51.16 (1:49.96-converted).
The meet then finished with the 400 free relays. The CMU women’s quartet of Naskret, Williams, Wilkinson and Qunell finished second behind a meet and pool record-setting Wyoming team. The Mavericks touched in 3:21.82 (3:21.42-converted) and easily qualified for the NCAA meet with a current NCAA Division II-leading time. The Cowgirls were 0.66 seconds quicker and broke their year-old meet and pool record of 3:21.49.
Meanwhile, the CMU men’s “A” team of Stacey, McEnaney, Otero and Scoggin the set the meet record in 2:55.67 (2:55.27-converted) while booking a spot in the national meet. They dominated the race, winning by 4.99 seconds over Wyoming, fittingly ending the lopsided meet win.
