GRAND JUNCTION, Colo.— After claiming their first post-season victory in three years with a 3-set home sweep of Colorado Christian on Tuesday night, the Colorado Mesa University Volleyball program ventures into the RMAC Tournament semifinals for the third time in the last five years on Friday against No. 2 seed Dixie State.

The semifinal match between the third-seeded Mavericks and the Trailblazers, newcomers to the RMAC this year, will commence at 5 p.m. on Friday in Golden, Colorado and the Colorado School of Mines' Lockridge Arena.
 
Live statistics and a video stream, as well as other tournament information can be found on the accompanying links.
 
The Mavericks (21-6 overall) will enter the match, the third of the season between the teams, as winners of four straight matches and six of their last seven.

Dixie State (22-4) defeated No. 7 seed UCCS in Tuesday's quarterfinal match in St. George, Utah and shared the conference's regular season crown with Mines, which won the head-to-head meeting during the regular season to earn the top seed and hosting rights on a tie-breaker.  The Trailblazers have now won eight straight matches, a streak started with an Oct. 12 win over the Mavericks.
 
Mines (23-4), which posted a 3-1 win over No. 8 seed Fort Lewis on Tuesday will play fourth-seeded MSU Denver (20-6), which claimed a 4-set win over No. 5 seed and cross town rival Regis, in the second RMAC Tournament semifinal.
 
The two semifinal winners will square off at 6 p.m. on Saturday in the RMAC Tournament Championship match with the winner earning an automatic berth in to the NCAA Division II Tournament.
 
The only sweep
 
The Mavericks were the only RMAC Tournament winners to have won their quarterfinal in a 3-set sweep.  The Mavericks won Tuesday's match over Colorado Christian with 25-18, 25-22 and 25-17 set victories while holding the Cougars to a .080 hitting percentage.  MacKenzie Edwards led a balanced attack with 10 kills.
 
Get out the brooms
 
The Mavericks have now won 15 of their matches in straight-set sweeps this season.  The Mavericks are 15-1 in 3-set matches, having been swept just once (Rockhurst).  That 15-1, 3-set mark is the best in the RMAC this season.
 
2K Libero
 
Maverick senior libero Taylor Woods became just the second CMU player of all-time to reach the 2,000 career dig milestone on Tuesday night when the Glendale, Arizona native recorded a team-high 13 digs.
 
Woods now has 2,003 career digs.  She ranks 13^th amongst active Division II players and leads all active RMAC players in that category.
 
Woods has had 20 or more digs nine times this season while finishing in double-figures in all 27 matches of the campaign.  She has also been in double-figures in all but one of her last 66 matches and but five (105) of her 110 career matches.
 
Woods has racked up 480 digs this season and ranks fourth in the RMAC with her 4.95 per set average.  However, she ranks first amongst players on a RMAC Tournament qualifying squad.
 
She is also averaging 4.93 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 had 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.
 
Prestigious honors
 
The Mavericks had five players and their coach recognized on the RMAC's post-season awards list, which was announced Tuesday morning.
 
Redshirt sophomore middle blocker/right side Kasie Gilfert, named as the RMAC Player of the Year, and Coach Dave Fleming, named as the Co-Coach of the Year, led the group with junior middle blocker Camille Smith joining Gilfert on the First Team All-RMAC squad.
 
Senior outside hitter MacKenzie Edwards and senior libero Taylor Woods, who now have seven career all-RMAC plaudits between them, were both second team selections while sophomore setter Ara Norwood received honorable mention status.
 
Gilfert is the first Maverick since Sarah Francis (2002) and just the third Maverick (Amy Miller, 1994) to ever receive the player of the year nod. 
 
Fleming now has three career RMAC Coach of the Year accolades (2009, 2014).
 
Meanwhile, Woods became CMU's first 4-time All-RMAC selection since Miller (1991-94).  There were no liberos selected to the first team this year.  Woods was a first team pick as well as the RMAC and AVCA South Central Regional Freshman of the Year in 2015 and has been a Second Team All-RMAC pick each of the last three years. 
 
Edwards was a first team pick in both 2016 and 2017 and now has three career All-RMAC plaudits.
 
Norwood joins fellow setter Samantha Ritter, a 2017 selection, as Maverick setters to receive honorable mention recognition.
 
Crunching the post-season numbers
 
The Mavericks, who had been bounced in the quarterfinal round of the 2016 and 2017 RMAC Tournaments, have now advanced to the semifinals for the third time in the last five years.  In 2015, the Mavericks defeated Western Colorado at home in the quarterfinals before knocking off MSU Denver in the semifinals, which were played in Golden, before falling to the host Orediggers in the championship.
 
In 2014, the Mavericks were the top seed and won all three of their home matches to win the tournament title after sharing the regular season crown.
 
The Mavericks are now 12-11 in the RMAC Tournament under 14^th year Head Coach Dave Fleming and have gone 4-2 in semifinal round matches, winning their last two.
 
They have never played RMAC newcomer Dixie State in post-season play.
 
Home-court advantage
 
Tuesday's match was CMU's first in the friendly confines of Brownson Arena in span of 24 days.  The Mavericks, who had been on the road for their final five regular season matches over three weekends, won nine out of 10 at home this year, claiming seven of those victories in straight sets.  The Mavericks dropped just six total sets at home while winning 28.
 
The Mavericks have posted winning records at home in each of the last six years, going a combined 60-18 (.769) at home during that time, highlighted by a 15-1 home record in their 2014 RMAC Championship season and 9-1 home-court marks in both 2015 and this year.
 
National lead and record pace
 
Maverick redshirt sophomore Kasie Gilfert hit .467 in Tuesday's victory over Colorado Christian finishing with eight kills and just one hitting error in 15 attempts.  That effort maintained her season-long hitting percentage of .459.  That mark continues to be good for a 33-point lead in the NCAA Division II statistics over Sascha Dominique of Cal State-San Bernardino, who is hitting .426.
 
Gilfert also leads all other 4-year college volleyball players in the country. 
 
NCAA Division I leader Sharonda Pickering of Florida Gulf Coast and Division III leader Julianne Malek of Washington-St. Louis are both hitting .438.  The NAIA statistical leader is Lydia Xu of Viterbo (Wis.), who is also hitting .438.
 
Gilfert has recorded 366 kills while committing just 62 errors in 662 attempts and has hit at a .500 clip or higher in 12 different matches this season.
 
Teammate Camille Smith now ranks 29th in the NCAA Division II statistics for hitting percentage at .372.  She now ranks third in the conference as Colorado Christian's Hope Baldrica (.378) now meets the RMAC minimum of three attempts for every team set after missing about half the season.
 
Gilfert's .459 clip would be the ninth best in NCAA Division II since 2008, when college volleyball moved to a 25-point set format.
 
It will also likely allow her to break both the Maverick and RMAC records for single-season hitting percentage.
 
The current RMAC record is .417, set by Nebraska-Kearney standout Erin Gudmundson in 2004.  The 31-year old Maverick record is .389, set by Phyllis Jennings in 1987.  Melissa Hess holds CMU's rally-scoring era (2001-Present) record of .371, set in 2014.  Both Gilfert and Smith are currently head of that mark.
 
Deep diving into the regional rankings
 
The Mavericks remained in the No. 5 spot of the latest NCAA Division II South Central Regional rankings, which were released on Wednesday.  Those rankings, which will be updated after this weekend's conference tournaments eventually determine the at-large selections and seeding for the 8-team regional portion of the NCAA Division II Tournament.  Those Mavericks sat seventh in the initial set of rankings on Oct. 24 and moved up to fifth on Oct. 31 after their 5-set win at the Colorado School of Mines.
 
Tarleton State has been in the top spot of all three editions of the rankings but saw their 24-match winning streak snapped on Saturday at unranked Texas-Permian Basin, which had also knocked off sixth-ranked Angelo State on Friday.  The TexAnns will still host the Lone Star Conference Tournament, beginning Thursday against Eastern New Mexico in Stephenville, Texas. 
 
Texas A&M-Commerce (25-5) will be the second seed in that tournament and remained ranked second in the region.  The Lady Lions will face the upset-minded Texas-Permian Basin Falcons in the quarterfinal round of the LSC Tournament after ending the regular season with a win at West Texas A&M and on an 8-match winning streak, equal to Dixie State for the longest active streak in the region.
 
The Colorado School of Mines Orediggers (23-4) have been third in all three set editions of the regional rankings.  Dixie State (22-4) moved up a spot to fourth in last week's rankings and remained there heading into Friday night's match against the Mavericks.
 
Angelo State (22-8), which had been ranked fourth in the initial set of rankings before sliding two spots to sixth last week, remained in the No. 6 spot and will be the third seed in the LSC Tournament and will open it against Texas A&M-Kingsville on Thursday.
 
Regis (19-10) slipped two spots to seventh in the second set of rankings and are now on pins and needles after falling to eight-ranked MSU Denver in the quarterfinal round of the RMAC Tournament, a match that ended their regular season.  Tuesday's loss was not factored into this week's regional rankings, which are based on matches through Sunday, but will become Sunday's tournament selection announcement.  However, the Rangers still have won two of the three head-to-head meetings with MSU Denver (20-8).
 
The only change in this week's rankings came at the bottom as Lubbock Christian moved up one spot to ninth while flip-flopping with West Texas A&M (18-12).   The Lady Chaps (21-8) will host the 4-team Heartland Conference Tournament on Friday and Saturday, opening it up against St. Edward's.  They fell at home against second-seeded Arkansas-Fort Smith on Thursday. 
 
West Texas A&M, which had been ninth in the first two sets of the regional rankings, opens the LSC Tournament against fifth-seeded Texas Woman's on Thursday.
 
The tournament champions from all three conferences earn automatic spots in the regional, which will begin on Nov. 15.  The other five qualifying teams will be selected at-large and will be announced on a live selection show to be aired on Sunday at 8 p.m. on www.ncaa.com.
 
The Mavericks are looking for their eighth NCAA Tournament appearance in school history.  If they are selected, it would mark the fourth time in the last five years.
 
Receiving votes in the polls
 
Friday's victory over Western Colorado, has helped keep the Mavericks in the "others receiving votes" category of this week's AVCA Division II Coaches Poll.  The Mavericks have now been in that category five different times this season, including the preseason.  CMU now has six points, one more than a week ago, and is one of three RMAC teams in the category along with Mines (28 points) and Dixie State (19).
 
All but one of the Maverick's six losses have come against teams currently in the top 25 or in the others receiving votes category.  The Mavs also have three wins against those teams.
 
20 win seasons
 
Thanks to last Friday's 3-set sweep at Western on Friday, the Mavericks reached the 20-win mark for the fifth time under 14^th year Head Coach Dave Fleming and for the 10th time in their NCAA Division II history, which dates back to 1992.  The Mavericks also had nine 20-win seasons in their NAIA history. 
 
Prior to this year, the Mavericks last won 20 matches in 2014 when they went 29-4 after a 21-8 2013 season.  The Mavericks also won at least 20 matches in 2010 (20-9) and 23 in 2005 (23-7), Fleming's first season.
 
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 15 more matches. He now has a 265-147 career record, good for a .643 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 five times.
 
Triple-Digit Blocks
 
Kasie Gilfert recorded a match-high five blocks in Friday's win at Western and added one more in Tuesday's tournament win over Colorado Christian to raiser her season total to 102.  She is the first Maverick to reach triple figures in a single season since Abby Ney (103) and Melissa Hess (102) both did so during CMU's 2014 RMAC Championship and NCAA Regional Final run.
 
Lauren Powley holds the Mavs' rally-scoring era single-season record of 116, which she set in 2003.
 
Gilfert is averaging 1.05 blocks per set this season to rank third in the RMAC in that category.  She is currently tied for eighth for the eighth best single-season record in the Mavericks' rally scoring history.
 
Blocking has been key
 
As a team, the Mavericks recorded six more blocks in Friday's win, raising their season total to 228.  They are now averaging 2.35 per set and rank 18^th in the nation and second in the conference behind only national leader Dixie State, which is averaging 2.97 per set.
 
The Mavericks are on pace to have the program's best blocking season since 2003, when they averaged 2.57 blocks per set to set a rally-scoring era school-record.
 
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.
 
In addition to Kasie Gilfert (above), the Mavericks' have the eighth best individual blocker in the RMAC in Camille Smith, who had four blocks on Tuesday to raise her season total to 92, an average of 0.94 per set.
 
New Ace Leader
 
In addition to her milestone dig night, Taylor Woods also had a solid match from behind the service line on Tuesday.  She recorded six of the Mavericks' eight aces, just one shy of her career-high that she had set on Oct. 27 at Mines.  In the process, Woods zoomed up three spots to take over the RMAC lead in both total service aces (38) and per set average (0.39) entering the RMAC Tournament.
 
Woods now has 110 aces in her 110-match career, moving past Megan Rush (107, 2009-12) into second place on the Mavericks' rally-scoring career aces chart behind only Drew Choules (153, 2004-07).
 
Tough D
 
The Mavericks held Colorado Christian to a .080 team hitting percentage on Tuesday and in the process, lowered their season-long opponent hitting percentage two points to .123, two points better than Dixie State's mark .125.
 
The Mavericks now rank 15^th nationally and first in the South Central Region.
 
The Mavericks have held opponents to a sub-.100 team hitting percentage 14 times this season and have done so 12 times in their current 19-from-22 winning stretch.
 
They are 14-0 this year when holding their opponents below .100. 
 
Bettering the Pre-Season Picks
 
The Mavericks finished tied for the third in the RMAC regular season standings after being predicted 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. 
 
Smart kids
 
Led by RMAC Academic Player of the Year Taylor Woods, the Maverick volleyball team had nine players selected to the RMAC All-Academic Team, which was announced last Thursday.  To be eligible for selection, a student-athlete must have a cumulative GPA or 3.30 or higher, used a season of competition and been at the nominating institution for a year.  Sports Information Directors from the conference selected the 14-member first team, which included Woods and senior outside hitter MacKenzie Edwards, based on a combination of athletic and accomplishments.  Qualified student-athletes not selected to the first team receive honor roll status.
 
Woods, a senior elementary education major who holds a 3.870 GPA, is the first Maverick to ever earn the prestigious honor, which dates back to 2007.  She and Edwards, a mass communications major with a 3.916 GPA, have now been first team picks in each of the last three years.
 
The Mavs' honor roll selections were Julia Baskin (3.935 GPA, Sport Management), Hailey Crane (3.385, Psychology), Ara Norwood (3.706, Kinesiology/Fitness & Health Promotion), Samantha Ritter (3.459, Biology), Katie Scherr (3.475, Physical Education), Allison Smith (3.525, Biology) and Natalee Todd (3.722, Exercise Science).  Todd is now a 4-time honoree while Baskin, Crane, Ritter and Scherr have all earned two RMAC All-Academic plaudits in their respective careers.
 
In-Season Honors
 
Tuesday's RMAC post-season awards were not the only ones that CMU players have earned so far this season.  The Mavericks 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 Oct. 1, Oct. 8 and Oct. 29 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.   She then was selected as the AVCA Division II Player of the Week last Tuesday (Oct. 30) for her efforts at UCCS and the Colorado School of Mines, becoming the first Maverick to ever earn the honor.
 
About Dixie State
 
Dixie State, a newcomer to the RMAC this year, enters the conference tournament semifinals having matched their Division II era record for wins in a season (22) with Tuesday's 4-set win over UCCS.
 
The Trailblazers, former members of the PacWest, were also well represented on the All-RMAC teams with six players earning recognition while Coach Robyn Felder sharing Coach of the Year honors with CMU's Dave Fleming.
 
Lauren Gammell, the national leader in blocking 1.58 per set, was named as the RMAC Defensive Player of the Year and was selected to the first team alongside sophomore Megan Treanor, a multiple-position player.  Senior libero Sid Brandon, sophomore To'a Faleao-Baich and senior middle blocker Malary Marshall were all second team selections while sophomore setter Jordyn Nelson was an honorable mention pick.
 
Treanor leads the Trailblazers with 263 kills, an average of 2.96 per set, and is hitting .253.  Faleao-Baich is just behind with 229 kills, an average of 2.46 per frame
 
Defensively, the Trailblazers lead the nation in blocking, thanks in large part to Gammell and Marshall, who is averaging 1.01 blocks per set to rank fifth in the RMAC.  Marshall also ranks seventh for hitting percentage at .325.
 
Brandon paces the squad in digs with 396, a 4.08 per set and has helped the Trailblazers hold opponents to a .125 hitting percentage, just behind the Mavericks in the RMAC statistics.
 
They also rank third in the RMAC for hitting percentage (.229) and service aces (1.50/set).  Faleao-Baich is fifth in the RMAC for individual aces with her 0.30 per set average.
 
Friday's match-up will be the third of the season between the teams as Dixie State swept the regular season series with 4-set wins on Sept. 15 in St. George, Utah and Oct. 13 in Grand Junction.  Those wins have given the Trailblazers a 4-1 advantage in the all-time series.
 
Gammell has recorded 11 blocks in each of the two matches against the Mavericks, averaging an incredible 2.75 blocks per set against the Mavs.
 
The teams are currently slotted to face one another in the regional as well as the Trailblazers are currently ranked fourth in the region, one spot ahead of the Mavericks.
 
Up next
 
A victory in Friday's semifinal, would put the Mavericks into the RMAC title match for the third time in the last five years against the winner of the second semifinal against the Colorado School of Mines and MSU Denver.   That championship match is slated for 6 p.m. on Saturday.
 
A loss would mean the Mavericks would have to wait for Sunday's 8 p.m. MST NCAA Tournament Selection show on www.ncaa.com to see if they are picked for the eighth time in program history.