GRAND JUNCTION, Colo.— On a milestone night by senior libero Taylor Woods, fellow senior MacKenzie Edwards put down a match-high 10 kills to lead a balanced Maverick attack in a 25-18, 25-22, 25-17 Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference Tournament victory over Colorado Christian University on Tuesday night in Brownson Arena.
 
Woods came into the night just 10 digs shy of 2,000 for her career and reached that milestone late in the second set before finishing the evening with 13.  She also had six service aces, just one shy of a career-high, as the No. 3 seeded Mavericks advanced to the tournament semifinals with what was their first post-season victory since 2015 while avenging their last RMAC Tournament home loss in 2013 to the sixth-seeded Cougars.
 
CMU, now 21-6 on the year, will next face No. 2 seed Dixie State for the third time this season on Friday at 5 p.m. in the Colorado School of Mines' Lockridge Arena in Golden.  Dixie State (22-4) outlasted UCCS in four sets on Tuesday while top-seeded Mines (23-4) shook off a first-set loss to win 3-1 against No. 8 seed Fort Lewis to earn the right of hosting the remainder of the tournament as the highest remaining seed.
 
The Orediggers will host fourth-seeded MSU Denver (20-8), which won 3-1 at home to Regis, in the other tournmament semifinal with the winners to meet in Saturday's championship match.
 
On Tuesday, the Mavericks hit .208 as a team holding the Cougars to a .080 mark. 
 
Edwards was in double-figures for the 13^th time this season while RMAC Player of the Year Kasie Gilfert finished with eight kills while hitting .467, maintaining her RMAC record hitting percentage pace of .459.
 
Camille Smith, who joined Gilfert on the First Team All-RMAC squad, also added seven kills and four blocks while Bismarck, North Dakota natives Katie Scherr and Natalee Todd each finished with six kills.
 
Setters Samantha Ritter and Ara Norwood also combined for 31 of the Mavericks' 35 assists with Ritter finishing with 16 assists along with nine digs.  Norwood had 15 assists and five digs.
 
The Mavericks finished with a 40-31 edge in total kills and doubled-up the Cougars, 8-4 in aces.  They also had 6-5 edge in blocks although the Cougars had 56 digs, two more than the Mavs.
 
Ashley Drye and Cali Bahnsen finished with eight kills each for the Cougars, who slipped to 13-15 overall with the loss, their second of the year to CMU.
 
Libero Mariela Gonzalez also had a sold night for CCU with 23 digs.  Setter Kylee Wurster finished with 26 assists, eight digs and three kills while hitting .600.
 
The Mavericks trailed in the opening set by a 7-6 margin but went on a 4-0 run that featured two Edwards kills to build a 10-7 lead.
 
They extended that advantage to 15-9 before the Cougars clawed back to within 16-13 on two Wurster aces.  However, a Todd kill and Woods service ace helped the Mavericks pull away for a 7-point opening set win.
 
The Mavericks never trailed in the second set building a 15-7 lead on an Edwards kill before the Cougars rallied for a 7-2 run of their own to get within three at 17-14 while forcing a Maverick timeout.

The visitors would hover within three points as Woods recorded her 2,000^th dig during what was the longest rally of the night at 21-16, a point eventually ended on a Drye kill.
 
After committing a hitting error and calling timeout, the Mavericks then scored back-to-back points on a Todd kill and Drye miscue to go up 23-18.  A net violation would give the Mavericks a 24-18 lead before the Cougars fought off four of the necessary six set points only to see a Smith second-hit fluky kill put the set away.
 
The Cougars would jump out to an early 4-1 lead in the third set before Woods registered three of her aces in a 8-0 Maverick run to seize control.
 
However, they struggled to put away a hard-fighting Cougar side that battled to within two points at 13-11.
 
However, a 3-0 run with kills by Todd, Edwards and Gilfert made it a 20-14 score.  Minutes later, the Mavericks then finished off the match on another 3-0 run that featured a tandem block by unrelated Camille and Allison Smith, a Scherr kill and Drye attack that landed just wide, allowed the Mavericks to advance to their third RMAC Tournament semifinal in the last five years (2014, 2015).