Hockey, Men's Basketball, Men's Sports, Triathlon, Volleyball, Women's Sports

Denver’s Carreau Wins National Championship

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Denver’s newest DI sport, Triathlon, did not win the team NCAA Triathlon championship at Tempe, Arizona. The DU team finished fourth. However, a freshman, Maira Carreau, had a historic performance for the University of Denver, earning the top spot on the podium Saturday and an individual national championship for DU. Carreau has three more years of eligibility remaining and if head coach Barbara Perkins recruits and develops a few more stars, Denver will be in the hunt for their first women’s team title to add to DU’s 33 national team championships. Triathlon may be on track to add another national championship team title to the rafters of Magness Arena.

Women’s volleyball (12-11, 11-4) continued their unlikely Summit League title march with one game remaining. The Pioneers took down Omaha, 3-2, at Hamilton Gym and pulled even in the standings with the first-place Mavs with one match remaining in the regular season.  Denver was led by Cassie Davis (22 kills), Briley Decker (40 assists) and Gianna Bartolo with 13 digs. The Pioneers play Oral Roberts Wednesday at home  (6:00 pm MT/ Senior Night) to close out the regular season.

Earlier in the week, Denver men’s soccer (11-2-5, 7-0-1) befell a similar fate as DU women’s soccer at the Summit League Tournament semifinal. After winning the regular season Summit League title, head coach Jamie Franks will have to stew over a shootout loss, just like coach Julianne Sitch, head women’s coach. Despite a hat trick from Oje Ofunrein, Denver was beaten in a shootout by UMKC after defeating the same Roos earlier in the week 2-0. Denver gave up too many goals in regulation, three, opening the door to a scoreless OT and stunning shootout defeat to the Roos. However, despite the loss, the Pioneers still made the NCAA Tournament field with an at-large bid and will host LIU in the first round on Thursday.

Denver men’s basketball (1-1) rebounded from an opening road loss to UC San Diego with a big home win against Cal Poly. Coach Jeff Wulbrun went deep into his bench in both games. Touko Tainamo dominated game one for DU and Tommy Bruner led DU along with a host of others to a win in game two. DU plays three road tournament games this week starting against Nicholls State (5pm MT) Wednesday.

We told you about Denver Hockey (7-2-1, 2-0-0) playing the Arizona State Sun Devils in their sparkling new Mullett Arena. Denver gave up four leads in the OT loss and overcame a 3-0 deficit to earn the split, 8-4 in game two. Next up is Omaha at Magness Arena next weekend.

4 thoughts on “Denver’s Carreau Wins National Championship”

  1. What a tremendous performance by Carreau to bring honor to herself, to DU and to her country. As a National Champion as a freshman, she could become one of the greatest athletes this school has produced, should her development trajectory continue upward.

    There is no reason that given the small number of teams competing, DU’s strong academic chops and perfect training location that DU should not be a perennial threat to win the team national title every year. Let’s hope Carreau’s individual title is the recruiting catalyst for DU to develop greater depth of quality athletes to push Carreau and to bring home national titles for Denver in this sport.

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