GOLDEN, Colo.— The Colorado Mesa University volleyball team came from a set down and dominated the fifth to claim a monstrous Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference and NCAA Division II South Central Region victory (25-18, 26-28, 23-25, 25-23, 15-6) at the RMAC-leading Colorado School of Mines on Saturday evening in the Orediggers' Lockridge Arena.
 
The Mavericks hit a solid .294 as a team as sophomore Kasie Gilfert recorded a match-high 24 kills and six blocks while hitting .512 to lead the effort, which sealed up a RMAC Tournament home match on Tuesday, Nov. 6 while keeping the Mavericks' hope of a share of the RMAC regular season crown alive.
 
The Mavericks are now 19-6 overall and 14-3 in the RMAC, just a match behind Mines (21-4, 15-2 RMAC) and Dixie State, which pulled out a 5-set win at home in St. George, Utah over Regis, for the conference lead.
 
MSU Denver is now fourth in the conference standings at 13-3 and has two home matches with Chadron State coming up next week.  Regis slipped to fifth at 13-4 and like the other contending teams, has just one regular season match remaining.
 
The Mavericks will be at Western Colorado (2-23, 1-16 RMAC) in Gunnison on Friday and will need a victory in that match combined with losses by Mines, who hosts UCCS (10-7 RMAC) and Dixie State, who hosts Westminster (5-12 RMAC) the same evening, to earn a share of the conference crown.
 
Even if they do not get any help, the Mavericks would finish as the No. 3 seed in the RMAC Tournament with a victory over the Mountaineers as they hold tie-breakers over both MSU Denver and Regis thanks to earlier wins.
 
Those victories were the highlights of the RMAC season for CMU, at least until Saturday as the Mavericks took the early lead on Mines with the 25-18 opening set win, keyed by four kills apiece from Gilfert, MacKenzie Edwards and Ashton Reese.
 
The Orediggers then took the next two sets by two points each before the Mavericks won the fourth by the same margin.  CMU then hit an errorless .444 with eight kills in the fifth set, seizing control with a 5-1 run triggered by a Gilfert kill and Taylor Woods service ace, one of a career-high seven.  That total is the highest single-match tally for any Maverick in 10 years since Gabrielle Lovato recorded nine aces on Oct. 24, 2008 against Adams State.
 
Leading 7-3 after that run and 9-5 moments later, the Mavericks then used another 4-0 run sparked by a Camille Smith kill to help put the match away.
 
Smith finished the night with 14 kills to match a career-high and four blocks while hitting .355. 
 
Meanwhile, Edwards recorded 13 kills and 11 digs for her 37^th career double-double.  Reese also had eight kills and hit .438. 
 
Katie Scherr chipped in another nine kills.
 
Defensively, Woods and setter Samantha Ritter finished with 16 digs each.  Ritter also tallied 24 assists to register her sixth double-double of the campaign while starting setter Ara Norwood finished with 30 assists and nine digs.
 
Abby Tiesman led the Orediggers with 19 kills and five blocks.  She also hit .500 as the Orediggers finished the night hitting .270.
 
However, the Orediggers were held to just a .118 hitting percentage in the decisive fifth set.
 
Both teams tallied 10 blocks although the Mavericks had a slight 74-69 edge in total kills.
 
The Orediggers came into the match as the top team in the "others receiving votes" category of Monday's AVCA Division II Coaches' Poll.  They were also ranked third in the initial set of the NCAA Division II South Central Regional Rankings.  The Mavericks were ranked seventh but could easily move up when the next set of rankings are released on Wednesday.