GRAND JUNCTION, Colo.— After a second straight weekend split that was good enough to clinch a spot in the Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference tournament, the Colorado Mesa University volleyball team faces another tough road trip and must wins to keep their chances of a RMAC regular season title alive.
 
The Mavericks, who are 17-6 overall and 12-3 in the RMAC, play at UCCS (11-12, 9-6 RMAC) in the Mountain Lions' Gallogly Events Center on Friday­ at 7 p.m. before facing the RMAC leading Colorado School of Mines Orediggers (20-3, 14-1 RMAC) in Golden and Lockridge Arena on Saturday at 5 p.m.
 
For fans that cant not make the trip can view a live stream of both matches on the RMAC Network, accessible at the link above.  Live statistics for both matches can also be found on the links above.
 
Seven in a row and now going for a home spot
 
The Mavericks clinched a RMAC Tournament spot for the seventh straight year with their 4-set Friday night win at Adams State.  CMU, which has not missed the RMAC Tournament since 2011, is currently tied for third in the RMAC standings with Regis at 12-3.  Both teams are one match behind Dixie State (13-2) and two matches behind Mines while sitting a half-match ahead of MSU Denver (10-3) in the conference standings.  The top four seeds at the end of the regular season will host quarterfinal round matches on Tuesday, Nov. 6 with the highest remaining seed after the quarterfinals playing host to both semifinals and the championship match on Nov. 9-10.
 
Meanwhile, UCCS is currently in seventh place in the conference standings, sandwiched right between Colorado Christian (10-5) and Fort Lewis (8-7).  Adams State (6-9) has the best chance to catch Fort Lewis for the eighth and final RMAC Tournament spot although Chadron State (5-9), New Mexico Highlands (5-10) and Westminster (5-10) are all still mathematically alive as well.
 
Still leading the nation
 
Maverick sophomore Kasie Gilfert had another strong weekend putting down a combined 36 kills while hitting .455 at Adams State and Fort Lewis.  In the process, she raised her season-long hitting percentage slightly to .440, a mark that continues to lead the NCAA Division II statistics through Monday matches.  In Friday's 4-set win at Adams State, Gilfert made just two hitting errors on 36 total swings to hit at a .500 clip.  She then had 16 kills while hitting .400 in Saturday's 5-set match at Fort Lewis.
 
On the season, Gilfert has recorded 303 kills, an average of 3.65 per set that ranks her second in the RMAC, and has committed just 55 hitting errors on 564 total attempts.
 
Gilfert now leads Julianne Miller of Azusa Pacific by 15 points.  Miller is second in the country for hitting percentage at .425 while Tampa's Taylor Foster is third at .417.  Meanwhile, teammates Hailey Jackson and Sascha Dominique of Cal State-San Bernardino are fourth and fifth at .417 and .416, respectively.
 
Gilfert has the most kills of any of the seven players nation-wide currently hitting over .400 and only Haley Kramer of Wheeling Jesuit has more kills amongst the top 15 hitters.  Kramer ranks 12^th in hitting percentage at .394.
 
CMU's Camille Smith is now ranked 19^th nationally and stands second in the RMAC for hitting percentage at .388.
 
School-record pace
 
Both Gilfert and Smith are on pace to possibly break the Maverick record for single-season hitting percentage of .389, which is currently held by Phyllis Jennings and set way back in 1987.  Melissa Hess holds CMU's rally-scoring record of .371, which she set in 2014.
 
Digging her way towards 2,000
 
Maverick senior libero Taylor Woods, who is already the Mavericks' rally-scoring era (2001-Present) for career digs had another strong weekend in her continued drive towards the 2,000 career dig milestone.  She tallied a season-high 33 in Saturday's match against Fort Lewis after recording 20 on Friday at Adams State and now has 1,939 in her career, just 61 shy of the mark.
 
With the Mavericks now guaranteed of at least one RMAC Tournament match, Woods will need to average just more than 15 digs per match to reach that milestone, an average that would go down even further if the Mavericks advance further in the RMAC Tournament and/or qualify for the NCAA Tournament.  Thus far in 2018, Woods is averaging 17.28 digs per match although 13 CMU's 21 matches have only gone three sets.  She has averaged 18.29 digs per match thus far in her 106 career matches.
 
Woods has had 20 or more digs nine times this year while finishing in double-figures in all 23 matches of the campaign.  She has racked up 416 digs this season and ranks third in the RMAC with her 5.01 per set average.
 
She is also averaging 4.95 digs per set throughout her career, which would smash the current rally-scoring era school record of 4.03, set by Ashley Loftsgard in her 2005-08 career.
 
Woods is also on pace to break CMU's all-time record for digs per set/game, a mark currently held by Lauren Freeman at 4.84, who played for the Mavs in 1992 and 1993.
 
Only Amy Miller, a CMU Hall of Honor inductee (2005) and 2011 RMAC Hall of Fame, has more career digs than Woods.  Miller set the all-time school-record of 2,542 from 1991-94, in a time when squads played under the side-out scoring system and typically played significantly more matches than they currently do.
 
As an example, the Mavericks played 51 matches in 1991 and 45 in 1994.  They have just 26 regular season matches on the schedule this year and would only play 35 even if they were to advance all the way to the championship match of both the RMAC and NCAA Tournaments.
 
How about some double-doubles
 
The Mavericks had four different players record five total double-doubles this past weekend.  Junior setter Samantha Ritter had double-doubles in both matches recording 22 assists and 11 digs against Adams State before coming back to register a season-high 31 assists while coming up with 12 digs against Fort Lewis.  She now has five double-doubles this season and 17 in her career.
 
Meanwhile, fellow setter Ara Norwood, a sophomore, finished with a career-high 31 assists while coming up with 12 digs against Adams State to record her third double-double of the season and fourth of her career.
 
Outside hitters MacKenzie Edwards and Katie Scherr also put up some impressive numbers of the weekend.  Edwards had 14 kills and a season-high 19 digs against Adams State to record her team-leading sixth double-double of the season.  It was also the 36^th of the seniors' impressive career.
 
Meanwhile, Scherr had 13 kills and a career-high 17 digs at Fort Lewis to tally her second double-double of the season and the eighth of her career.  Two of those have come against the Skyhawks.
 
Great Leadership
 
Dave Fleming is in in 14^th year as the Mavericks' head coach and earned his 250^th career win on Sept. 7 against CSU-Pueblo.  He and the Mavericks have since won 11 more matches. He now has a 261-147 career record, good for a .640 career winning percentage.
 
Fleming took over the helm of the program in 2005 and is just the fourth head coach in the program's 34-year history.  He has guided the Mavericks to six NCAA Division II National Tournament berths, a 2014 RMAC Regular Season and Tournament titles and three RMAC West Division crowns.  The Mavericks have had winning seasons in all but one of his years with the program and have reached the 20-win mark four times.
 
Get out the brooms
 
The Mavericks have won 12 of their matches in straight-set sweeps this season.  The Mavericks are 12-1 in 3-set matches this season and have only been swept once.  That 12-1 3-set mark is equal to the best (Colorado School of Mines) in the RMAC.
 
Blocking their way to success
 
The Mavericks recorded 17 more blocks as a team over the weekend and now have 197 on the season, an average of 2.37 per set.  They have recorded 10 or more blocks in eight different matches this season and now rank 14th nationally and second in the conference behind only national leader Dixie State at 2.98.
 
The Mavericks are on pace to have the program's best blocking season since 2003, when they averaged 2.57 blocks per set.
 
In 2017, the Mavericks finished just 13^th in the RMAC for blocking with a 1.53 per set average.  They recorded 148 team blocks that year.  This year's edition of the Maverick squad is already 49 blocks ahead of last year's squad and still has at least four matches left in the campaign.
 
Individually, Kasie Gilfert leads the team with 87 blocks while Camille Smith is right behind with 79. 
 
Gilfert had a career-high matching seven, including three solos, in Friday night's win over Adams State and is now averaging 1.05 per set to rank third in the RMAC.    Smith is averaging 0.95 per set to stand seventh in the RMAC.
 
Both have a realistic shot at becoming the first Mavericks to reach 100 blocks in a single season since Abby Ney (103) and Melissa Hess (102) both reached triple figures during CMU's 2014 RMAC Championship and NCAA Regional Finalist squad.
 
Tough D
 
The Mavericks held Adams State (.130) and Fort Lewis (.147) to a combined .139 hitting percentage last weekend and now have a season-long opponent hitting percentage of .123, a mark that continues to rank the Mavericks second in the RMAC by just one point behind Dixie State (.122).   The Mavericks now rank 18^th in the country.
 
The Mavericks have held opponents to a sub-.100 team hitting percentage 11 times this season and have done so nine times in their current 14-from-17 winning stretch. 
 
Pre-Season Picks
 
The Mavericks were picked to finish fifth in the Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference this year, according to the conference preseason coaches' poll.  They received 173 points in the polling of the conference's 16 head coaches after their 17-10 (11-7 RMAC) 2017 season that saw them finish sixth in the conference's regular season standings.
 
Honors thus far
 
CMU also had two Preseason All-RMAC selections in seniors MacKenzie Edwards, a returning AVCA Honorable Mention All-America outside hitter, and libero Taylor Woods.  Edwards was a First Team All-RMAC selection last year while Woods earned second team honors for the second straight year in 2017.  Woods was also recognized as the RMAC's Defensive Player of the week on Aug. 27 for her efforts at the Concordia Invitational.
 
Meanwhile, Kasie Gilfert was named to the all-tournament team at the Concordia Invitational while both Gilfert and MacKenzie Edwards earned all-tournament honors at the Rockhurst Volleyball Classic.
 
Gilfert was then named as the RMAC Offensive Player of the Week on both Oct. 3 and 10 and was also tabbed as PrepVolleyball.com's Non-Division I National Player of the Week honor on Oct. 3 for her efforts in the Mavericks' Sept. 29 and 30 victories over then nationally-ranked Regis and Colorado Christian the weekend before.
 
About UCCS
 
UCCS will enter Friday's match with an 11-12 overall record.  The Mountain Lions are also 9-6 in RMAC play and have won four of their last six and nine of their last 12 matches after a 2-9 start.
 
Mountain Lion setter Raelynn Edge ranks third in the RMAC for assists at 10.88 per set and would reach the 1,000 mark on Friday if she records 43. 
 
They would also clinch a RMAC Tournament berth if they are able to defeat the Mavericks or if both Adams State and Chadron State were to lose matches.
 
Her favorite target has been senior outside hitter Alyssa Brinton, who ranks 10^th in the RMAC for kills per set at 3.03.  Brinton has 233 total kills and is also third on the team in digs with 198 while four other Mountain Lions have between 147-186 total kills in a balanced attack.  Lauren Brown, who is third on the team in total kills with 184 paces the team with 78 blocks, good for a 0.91 per set average that ranks her ninth in the RMAC.
 
Jordyn Kinsey leads the team with 377 digs and a 4.28 per set average.
 
As a team, the Mountain Lions are hitting .200 to rank sixth in the RMAC.  They are fifth in the RMAC for kills (13.14/set), ninth for blocks (1.55/set) and 10^th service aces (1.16/set) but sit just 15^th for total digs at 14.44 per set.
 
They are 4-3 at home this season but have not defeated the Mavericks in Colorado Springs since 2012.  The Mavericks have won five of the last six meetings between the teams, including a 3-0 decision on Nov. 3, 2017 in Colorado Springs.
 
About Colorado School of Mines
 
The Orediggers enter the weekend, which begins for them on Friday against Western Colorado, with a 20-3 overall record.  They are also atop the RMAC standings at 14-1 and are the top team in the "others receiving votes" category of the AVCA Division II Coaches' Poll but just outside the top 25 after suffering their only conference loss of the campaign on Oct. 12 at the hands of Colorado Christian.
 
If they are able to go 2-0 this weekend, they would seal up at least a share of the conference title for the sixth time in the last seven years.
 
As one would expect with an impressive team, the Orediggers lead the RMAC in hitting percentage (.268) as well as kills (14.27) and assists (13.49) per set.  They are also tied with Colorado Christian for top spot in service aces per set (1.50).  Their .268 team hitting percentage is the 10^th best mark in Division II volleyball.
 
Individually, Abby Tiesman ranks third in the RMAC for kills (3.48/set) and fifth in the RMAC for hitting percentage at .330.  Taylor Hicken is seventh in the RMAC for hitting efficiency at .321 while setter Drew Stokes paces the RMAC while ranking 11th nationally for assists at 11.69 per set.
 
Amanda Donais has a conference-leading 31 service aces and is second with her 0.41 per set average while Elle Duis stands fifth for digging at 4.58 per set.
 
Saturday's meeting will mark the first time since 2010 that the Orediggers were not ranked in the nation's top 25 at the time of the match.  The Mavericks have picked up two wins over ranked editions of the Orediggers since then, claiming a 3-0 win over then No. 12 Mines on Sept. 26, 2014 in Golden and a 3-1 win over No. 18 Mines on Oct. 5, 2016 in Grand Junction.  The 2014 triumph the Mavericks' last road triumph over Mines.
 
Up next
 
After this weekend's matches, the Mavericks will close out the regular season on Friday, Nov. 2 at Western Colorado University in Gunnison.  They then being the post-season on Tuesday, Nov. 6 in the quarterfinal round of the RMAC Tournament.