Colorado Mesa University Women's Softball

Your browser does not support the audio element. Serving on the Colorado Mesa University softball coaching staff since 2013, Mercedes Bohte (Lovato) is now in now starting her sixth season as the Mavericks’ head coach.  She was officially named to the position in June, 2021, after stepping in to the role of interim head coach right before the 2021 campaign.   As the interim head coach In 2021, Bohte led the Mavericks to a 39-5 overall record and a sweep of both the Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference regular season and tournament titles.  The Mavericks, who had the best winning percentage in Division II (.886) and qualified for their fifth consecutive NCAA Division II Tournament and went 34-2 in conference play.   The Mavs then again won the Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference title in 2022, going 45-9 overall and 35-3 in RMAC play.  They also had a solid 32-23 2023 season while advancing to the RMAC Tournament Championship game.   The Mavs then returned to title-winning ways in 2024, claiming the Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference regular season title before late advancing to the championship game of the NCAA South Central Regional Tournament while finishing the season with a 46-11 record. The success continued in 2025 as the Mavs went 40-17 overall and 35-9 in RMAC play while advancing to the RMAC Tournament Championship game for the third straight year before qualifying for the NCAA South Central Regional Tournament.   She has compiled a 202-65 record and .757 winning percentage in her five previous seasons in charge of the Maverick program, including an even more impressive 171-32 (.842) record in RMAC play. Bohte has twice been named as the RMAC Coach of the Year (2021, 2024)   Now in her 14th year on the Maverick coaching staff, Bohte has helped the Mavericks win eight RMAC Championships, including three in her time as the head coach, and qualify for six NCAA Tournaments.    As the team’s pitching coach, her staff has led the RMAC in ERA seven times, most recently in 2022, when Paige Adair set CMU’s single-season record for ERA (1.30) while becoming the first Maverick to ever claim Regional Pitcher of the Year honors while claiming her second straight RMAC Pitcher of the Year honor.   She then guided Preslee Christensen to RMAC Pitcher of the Year honors in 2024 after working with RMAC Pitchers of the Years Jessica Severinson (2014), McKenzie Surface (2017) and Kimbri Herring (2019) while serving as an assistant coach.   The Mavs have also had the RMAC Player of the Year in three of Bohte’s four previous seasons as the CMU Head Coach with Ellie Smith (2021), Ashley Bradford (2022) and Myah Arrieta (2024) earning those accolades.    In 2024, the Mavericks set a NCAA Division II record by hitting 123 home runs thanks in part to Arrieta’s RMAC and school-record smashing total of 28.   In her time as the Mavs’ pitching coach, Bohte has guided 16 All-RMAC pitchers, 11 of whom have also earned all-region honors. Jessalyn Gallegos was also named as both the RMAC Freshman and NFCA National Freshman of the Year finalist in 2025.   The Mavericks have also combined for 11 total All-America honors (7 D2CCA, 4 NFCA) in her time as a head coach.   Bohte had come to CMU in 2013 after assisting at Division III California Lutheran University for one year.  In 2008, Bohte coached at Moorpark College as the Raiders became Western State Conference Champions. She was also named on the WSC Conference Coaching Staff of the Year. She also had an extensive professional softball career abroad. In the summer of 2011 she played for the Catano Lancheras in San Juan, Puerto Rico where she threw a perfect game. She also played in the Netherlands for Utrecht Centrals in 2008 and Terrasvogels in 2011. Bohte played and coached in Austria in 2009 and 2010 for the St. Poelten Pee Wees. She was named MVP of the Austrian Softball league in 2009 and Golden Glove Short Stop in 2010.  As an undergraduate student-athlete, Bohte played for CSU Northridge (2007-2008), and the University of Illinois-Chicago (2005-2006).  In her two seasons at CSUN, she went 34-27 with 235 strikeouts as their top pitcher and helped lead the Matadors to a NCAA Division I Tournament appearance in 2007. As a senior in 2018, she appeared in 42 of the Matadors’ 47 games. Bohte, an All-Big West Conference selection both years is still tied for fifth in CSUN history with three career no-hitters. Bohte is native of Simi Valley, California, earned her B.A. in Communication Studies from CSU Northridge in 2008. She earned her M.A. in Coaching and Athletic Administration from Concordia Irvine in 2015. She and her husband Jeff were married in 2020 and celebrated the birth of their daughter Ivy in 2021 and son Maximus in 2023.  The family lives in Grand Junction with their huskies Shayla and Ruby.

Your browser does not support the audio element. Michael “Mickey” Wender was named as the Colorado Mesa University Head Coach for the Swimming & Diving team in July of 2019 and has since taken the program to unprecedented levels of success. They have swept the ten Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference men’s and women’s team titles in all five of his previous seasons and have steadily been moving up the national ladder, taking a program-best second (women’s) and fifth (men’s) at the 2024 NCAA Division II Championships. Wender was named as the College Swimming & Diving Coaches Association NCAA Division II Women’s Swim Coach of the Year in 2024 after his women’s swimmers won seven events at the national championships in Geneva, Ohio. He also coached 2-time National Men’s Swimmer of the Year Ben Sampson to six national titles over the previous two seasons, guiding the self-described average high school swimmer all the way to the 2024 U.S. Olympic Trials, just one example of Wender’s incredible swimming development and motivational skills. Wender has also been named as the RMAC Coach of the Year four times. In his five previous seasons with the Mavericks, his swimmers and divers have combined to win 286 CSCAA All-America honors and 157 Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference titles.  Included in that total are 41 RMAC relay wins, a testament to the depth and domination of the Maverick program, that is also undefeated in duals against fellow RMAC and NCAA Division II squads. The Mavericks have also claimed meet wins over several Division I programs, including their first ever against a Power-5 opponent in BYU (women) last year. Wender's athletes have also shined in the classroom as his programs have been honored as a Scholar All-America Team by the CSCAA a combined 19 times in 20 such semi-annual opportunities.  They Mavericks have also led or co-led all NCAA Division II programs in CSCAA Scholar All-America honorees in each of the past two years and have combined for national-leading 25 College Sports Communicators (formerly known as CoSIDA) Academic All-America awards in the previous five years. They have also routinely being recognized for their high GPAs, excellence in community service and team spirit.  Wender has racked up nearly 500 dual meet wins in his more than 32 previous years as a collegiate head coach.  Prior to coming to CMU, Wender had served at Division I Army West Point, where he coached the Black Knights from 2006-19.  He had also been the head coach at the University of Washington from 1998-2006 after a 1992-98 stint at the University of California, Santa Cruz from 1992-98.  Additionally, Wender served as the head coach for American Samoa at the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing, China.     He began his collegiate coaching career at Cal State University Northridge, where he assisted NCAA Coach of the Decade Pete Accardy from 1990-92 after serving as the coach at Sachem (N.Y.) High School the previous year.    Wender has developed swimmers to qualify for NCAA Division I and II Championship meets in every event and was named as the Patriot League Swimming Coach of the Year three times at Army West Point, most recently in 2017.  His swimmers have broken all of the existing school records at every previous school he coached.    He has also produced several swimmers who ranked in the Top 100 in the world and has coached swimmers at every U.S. Olympic Trials since 2000, including three Mavericks in Lily Borgenheimer (2020/21), Sampson (2024) and current Maverick senior and team captain Andrew Scoggin (2024). Wender also served on the Board of Directors for the CSCAA from 2003-06 and was the President of the Greater Seattle USA Swim Coaches Association from 2002-04 and has spearheaded fundraising campaigns that have raised more than $2 million in total to support and enhance the programs at his previous institutions.    A personal triathlon enthusiast, he completed two Ironman (1993, 1994) and was a Top 10 finisher in the 1996 Eco-challenge, known as the World's Toughest Athletic Event.   He was originally hired at CMU in a dual role as the head swimming/diving & triathlon coach and led the Maverick triathlon team to a regional title and fourth place national finish in 2019 before the 2020 fall season was canceled due to COVID.  He also began the 2022 season in charge of the Maverick triathlon program during a transition period of two other Maverick coaches, laying the groundwork for yet another regional title and eventual second place national finish.   He is a 1989 physical education graduate from the University of Vermont and obtained a master's degree from CSUN in 1995.     Wender and his wife Kate have been married for more than 27 years and are the parents of four children— Samantha, twin brothers Jack & Luke and Grace. 

Your browser does not support the audio element.   2025-26 is Andy Parro's fifth with the CMU Swimming & Diving team.  He was promoted to the role of head coach early in the season and continues to serve as the program’s recruiting coordinator. His talents on and off the pool deck have helped the Mavericks sweep the Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference titles in all four of his previous years as the Mavs' top assistant coach. The Maverick women have also finished in the top five at the NCAA Division II National Championships in each of the previous four years, taking second in 2024 and third in 2025.  CMU’s men have two fifth place national championship finishes and have finished no lower than ninth in Parro’s four years. The Maverick swimmers have also combined to win 13 individual and four relay NCAA Division II National Championships over the past four years, including 11 titles in 2024 alone.   The Maverick athletes have also combined to win 283 total CSCAA All-America honors and have claimed 106 RMAC event wins in the past four seasons with Parro on the Maverick staff. Parro joined the staff the fall of 2021 after serving as the head coach for two seasons from 2018-20 at the Illinois Institute of Tech in his native city of Chicago.   In 2020, he led the Scarlet Hawk men to a Liberal Arts Conference team title and was named as the conference’s coach of the year.  He also guided the Scarlet Hawk women to a third place finish and guided the program’s first-ever NCAA Division III Championship Qualifier in Anna Slominksi in the 100 and 200-yard breaststroke.   Before coaching in the college ranks, Parro served as the head boys and girls swimming coach at Whitney Young High School in Chicago.  In his eight seasons of what was his first coaching job, Parro coached the Dolphins to seven conference championships and coached five high school all-Americans and several Illinois State Championship qualifiers.   Parro was a collegiate swimmer as well, competing at the University of Illinois-Chicago from 2007-09, where he was a Horizon League Finalist.   Parro, an outdoor enthusiast, and his wife Sarah have three children: Braydon, Logan and Lilliana.

Your browser does not support the audio element. Colorado Mesa University alumnus and baseball all-American Willie Hinojosa is in his fifth season as the Mavericks’ assistant softball coach.   In his previous four seasons, he has helped the Mavericks win two Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference regular season titles (2022, 2024) and advance to the RMAC Tournament Championship game in the other two (2023, 2025).   As the team’s hitting coach, he has seen the Mavericks twice hit 100 or more home runs in his time with the program.  They hit a NCAA Division II record 123 in 2024 and led the country in scoring putting up 8.26 runs per game as well as in slugging percentage (.680).   They also led the country with 100 home runs in 2022.   The Mavericks won the RMAC regular season titles in both of those seasons and advanced to the RMAC Tournament title game in 2023, a year that saw the Mavericks hit 90 home runs to finish third in the national statistics. The Mavs also advanced to the RMAC Tournament title game in 2025 while hitting 60 home runs, second most in the RMAC   Hinojosa had joined the Maverick program for the 2021-22 academic year with more than ten years of coaching experience on the diamond.  He had spent the previous three-plus years as the assistant baseball coach at Hartnell Junior College in Salinas, California, just miles from his hometown of Watsonville.    A 2005 graduate of CMU with a degree in kinesiology, Hinojosa was a Second Team NCBWA and Third Team ABCA All-American after his senior season, in which he hit .364 with 18 home runs and 71 RBIs.  He also earned First Team All-RMAC and All-West Region honors at the shortstop position as the Mavericks won the RMAC title before hosting their first regional tournament.   Coming to CMU after a 2-year (2001-02) career at Hartnell, where he won a league title and earned first team all-conference honors, Hinojosa redshirted during the 2003 season before earning RMAC Tournament MVP honors in 2004, a season that saw him hit .378 with 14 home runs and 67 RBIs in a Maverick uniform.   After his playing career, Hinojosa took his knowledge of the game to the coaching ranks and served as an assistant baseball coach at nearby Palisade High School for seven years over two stints.  During that time, he helped the Bulldogs win four league titles and make four playoff appearance.  He also was an assistant coach for the Palisade softball team.   Hinojosa then returned to his hometown and coached at St. Francis High School, helping lead the Sharks’ baseball team to a second place finish in the league and the section championship game in 2018.  He then made the jump over to Hartnell and helped the Panthers to their best season under head coach Travis Babin in 2019.   While in California, Hinojosa also regularly gave private softball lessons to aspiring players.   He and partner Ivy Villanueva have a 6-year old daughter named Olivia.   In his spare time, Hinojosa enjoys fishing, traveling and watching collegiate sports.

Your browser does not support the audio element. Double national champion Benedict Nagy is Colorado Mesa University's new graduate assistant swimming coach.   Nagy used her fifth year of collegiate eligibility at CMU in 2023-24 and then served as a volunteer assistant coach for the Mavericks in 2024-25 while completing a bachelor's degree in animation, film and photography.  She is now beginning a master's degree program in business administration.   Nagy has also been coaching with Maverick Aquatics, a local age-group team that calls CMU's El Pomar Natatorium home and has been coaching during the Mavs' summer swim camps.   Prior to CMU, she had starred at Division I Nevada in her hometown of Reno prior to joining the Maverick program.   In her lone season as a swimmer on the Maverick squad, Nagy won both the 200 and 400-yard individual medley relay titles at the 2024 NCAA Division II Championships, setting program records times of 1:58.63 and 4:10.40 at the national meet while helping lead the Mavericks to a second place national championship team finish, the best in program history.  Nagy, who ranks second in NCAA Division II history for the 400 IM and ninth for the 200 IM, also earned three other First Team CSCAA All-America honors in the 200 Breast, 200 Fly and 800 Free Relay and set CMU records in four events, including the 200 Fly (1:58.63) and 100 IM (56.97) throughout her season with the Mavs.   Nagy also claimed four Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference titles and set championship meet records in both the 400 IM and 800 Free Relay.   She also shined academically and was named as the 2023-24 NCAA Division II Women's Swimming & Diving Academic All-America Team Member of the Year by the College Sports Communicators organization.  She was also named as First Team CSCAA Scholar All-American.   In her four years at Nevada from 2020-23, Nagy won three Mountain West Conference titles in the 400 IM and was a 7-time All-MWC performer for the Wolfpack.  She also qualified for the NCAA Division I National Championships in 2023.

Your browser does not support the audio element. With 20 years of NCAA Division I coaching experience at the University of New Mexico and UNLV (Nevada-Las Vegas), Julie Weddle began her role as Colorado Mesa University's diving coach in August, 2024. Prior to CMU, Weddle spent ten years at New Mexico from 2013-23 as the Lobos’ Head Diving Coach after a similar ten year stint at UNLV from 2003-13 in her hometown.  Her divers were successful in both programs.   At UNM, she guided 15 NCAA Division I Zone Qualifiers in her time in Albuquerque, including Megan Harper, who won the Mountain West Conference title on the 3-meter in 2014.  At UNLV, she guided 20 Zone qualifiers as the Rebel divers contributed to eight (7 men’s, 1 women’s) conference titles in their stints in the MWC, Western Athletic Conference and Mountain Pacific Sports Federation.   Weddle also coached or oversaw youth club programs in both Albuquerque and Las Vegas and served as the head diving instructor from the City of Henderson (Nev.) Parks and Recreation, a position she started in 1997 before beginning her own collegiate career.  She grew that program from 15 to 120 students.   Prior to joining the Division I coaching ranks, Weddle also had coaching stints with the Nevada Diving Club (1999-2002) and for the Clark County School District (2003).   “We are thrilled to welcome Coach Weddle to the Maverick Nation. Julie has a wealth of diving experience and I know she will have an immediate and lasting impact on our divers. I couldn’t be more excited about working together,” Wender said.   “She has also been involved in every facet of operating the collegiate teams at UNLV and UNM- and understands what it takes to be successful as a total program.  We are philosophically aligned and have the same goal for all the athletes in our program— to provide them with opportunities to develop to their full potential as athletes and future leaders while competing at the highest levels both in and out of the pool).”   At CMU, Weddle will join an already powerful Maverick swimming & diving program, which has swept the last six Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference team titles while taking a program-best second (women’s) and fifth (men’s) at the NCAA Division II Championships in 2024.  The Maverick divers have been big parts of those efforts, claiming 14 of the last possible 16 RMAC Men’s & Women’s Diver of the Year honors over the past eight years.   A NCAA Division I diver herself, Weddle was a 4-year letterwinner and 3-time NCAA Division I Zone Qualifier at Nevada from 1998-2002, where she was coached by Jian Li You, who went on to coach U.S. Olympian Krysta Palmer at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, contested in 2021.   At the 2001 WAC Championship meet, Weddle finished fifth in the 3-meter diving event. In that same season she took 22nd and 23rd in the one-meter and three-meter boards, respectively at the NCAA Zone meet. In 2000, she placed second in the 1-meter diving event and third in the three-meter diving event at the 2000 Big West Championships as the Wolfpack won a fifth straight conference title before moving to WAC.  Weddle was a part of two of those titles.   In 1999, Weddle was eighth in the one-meter competition at the Big West Championships and qualified for the NCAA Zone Championships.   Weddle graduated from Nevada in 2002 with a degree in health ecology.   She has two sons.  Her son Karter is a freshman football student-athlete at Western New Mexico while her younger son Karson is a junior at Fruita Monument High School, where he is a on the football, basketball and track & field teams.  Her aunt and uncle are also residents of Grand Junction, which along with her hobbies and interests made CMU a natural fit.   When not around the pool, Weddle loves paddleboarding, anything to do with water, mountain biking and hiking.