DURANGO, Colo.— The Fort Lewis College Skyhawks came from a set down on two occasions and then from 11-9 down in the decisive fifth set to upset the Colorado Mesa University Mavericks in Saturday night Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference volleyball action.
The Mavericks were guilty of a season-high 43 hitting errors throughout the night as they fell to 17-6 overall and to 12-3 in the RMAC.
Meanwhile, Fort Lewis claimed a fourth straight win while improving to 8-11 overall and to 8-7 in the RMAC while taking a large step towards a RMAC Tournament berth.
CMU clinched a spot in that tournament with a 4-set Friday night win at Adams State but has now fallen two matches behind RMAC leading Colorado School of Mines with just three matches left in the regular season. One of those will be at Mines next Saturday.
The Mavericks, who are now tied for third in the RMAC standings with Regis also play at UCCS on Friday and close out the regular season at Western Colorado on Nov. 2.
In Saturday's match,
MacKenzie Edwards led four Mavericks in double-figures for kills with 17. Meanwhile,
Kasie Gilfert put down 16 while
Camille Smith and
Katie Scherr finished with 13 each.
Senior libero
Taylor Woods also had a solid match, digging up a season-high 33 Skyhawk attacks while Scherr had a career-high 17 to record her second double-double of the campaign.
Setter
Samantha Ritter also registered a double-double for the second straight night with a season-high 31 assists and 12 digs.
However, all of those statistics were for naught as the Skyhawks recorded 13 blocks and held the mis-firing Maverick attack to a .122 hitting percentage, significantly due to 30 other hitting errors.
The Mavericks did finish with a 67-46 advantage in total kills while winning the first and third sets by convincing 25-16 and 25-17 margins. However, FLC took the second 25-13 and squeaked out a 26-24 fourth-set win before rallying in a back-and-forth fifth set, winning it 15-13.
The Mavericks took an 11-9 lead in that frame on a Smith kill followed by one of their seven blocks but committed a service error and two service aces, one of which was the result of a Skyhawk block to fall behind 12-11.
Smith responded to even the score at 12 with another kill before the Skyhawks scored three of the next four points thanks to a Hailey Christiansen kill, a block and another Maverick hitting error to claim the victory.
