GRAND JUNCTION, Colo.— After a weekend split in Utah, the Colorado Mesa University Maverick volleyball team has returned home to prepare for a 4-match home-stand, which opens this weekend against Chadron State College and MSU Denver.
 
The Mavericks, who saw a 7-match winning streak snapped last Saturday at Dixie State University, are 9-4 overall and 4-1 in Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference play, good to stand in a third place tie in the early conference standings.
 
Chadron State will venture into Brownson Arena for Friday's 7 p.m. match with 2-10 overall and 0-4 RMAC records.
 
MSU Denver, which plays at Western State Colorado University on Friday, is currently 7-5 overall and just a half-match behind the Mavericks and Regis with a 3-1 conference mark.  They will play the Mavericks in a re-match of last year's RMAC Tournament quarterfinal at 5 p.m. on Saturday.
 
A live stream of both matches can be seen on the RMAC Network and accessed at the link above.  Live statistics for both matches can also be found on the links above.
 
1 & 2 combo
 
The Mavericks continue to have the top two hitters in the RMAC in attack percentage.  Junior middle Camille Smith continues to lead the category and is now hitting .418 having made just 15 hitting errors while putting down 96 kills on 194 attempts.  She has hit over .600 in four different matches this season.
 
Meanwhile, sophomore middle and right side Kasie Gilfert ranks second in the conference with her .375 mark.  She leads the Mavericks with 140 kills and has hit at a .400 clip or higher in five different matches, including a season-best and errorless .632 mark against Cal Poly Pomona, when she had a dozen kills.  She had 13 kills and hit .478 in Friday's win at Westminster and added another dozen kills at Dixie State.
 
As a team, the Mavericks rank third in the RMAC with her .211 attack percentage.
 
Could be No. 2
 
Maverick senior libero Taylor Woods recorded 23 more digs in the weekend split in Utah and now has 1,754 for her career, just 29 shy of equaling Pam Glenn for the No. 2 spot on the Mavericks' all-time career digs chart.  Glenn had 1,783 in her 1992-95 career which was under the old serve to score format of the sport.
 
Woods became CMU's rally-scoring era (2001-Present) school-record holder for career digs in the Mavericks' third match of 2018 against Azusa Pacific.  She also had a season-high 32 in the season-opener against Cal State-L.A., the fourth-highest single-match total of her illustrious career.
 
She has had 20 or more digs five times this year and has been in double-figures in all 13 matches while racking up 231 digs to rank fifth in the RMAC with her 4.91 per set average.
 
Woods, the 2015 RMAC and AVCA South Central Region Freshman of the Year and 3-time overall All-RMAC selection, is also well above pace to smash Ashley Loftsgard's rally-scoring era digs per set record.  Woods is averaging 4.93 digs in 356 career sets to date.  Loftsgard, the former rally-scoring era record holder for total digs, averaged 4.03 in 392 sets played in her 2005-08 career.
 
400^th match in charge
 
Saturday's match against MSU Denver will be CMU's 400^th under 14^th year head coach Dave Fleming, who earned his 250^th career win on Sept. 7 against CSU-Pueblo.  He has since won three more and now has a 253-145 career record, good for a .636 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.
 
"Zie" looks for 1K
 
Senior outside hitter MacKenzie Edwards is nearing the 1,000 career kill milestone and will enter this weekend with 966 kills, just 34 shy of the milestone.  She has been in double-figures in five of her last eight matches and six overall this season.  She is second on the team in total kills with 127 and paces the squad with her 3.26-kill per set average, a mark that ranks her sixth in the RMAC.
 
The 2-time First Team All-RMAC selection and 2017 AVCA Honorable Mention All-American had a match-high 16 kills on Saturday against Dixie State. 
 
Strong at the net
 
The Mavericks have recorded 113 total blocks a team this year, an average of 2.40 per set.  That average ranks them 14^th nationally and second in the RMAC behind only Dixie State, which ranks third nationally at 2.98 per set.   
 
In 2017, the Mavericks finished just 13^th in the RMAC for blocking with a 1.53 per set average.   
 
Individually, Kasie Gilfert leads the team with 50 blocks and a 1.06 per set average, the third best mark in the RMAC.  Natalee Todd (46 blocks) and Camille Smith (39) have also contributed significantly to the Mavericks' net defense.  Todd is averaging a block per set to rank sixth in the RMAC.  She had seven blocks over the weekend surpassing the 100-block milestone for her career on Friday against Westminster.
 
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.
 
Early Season honors
 
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.
 
About Chadron State
 
The Eagles have dropped their last five matches to fall to 2-10 overall and are still looking for their first conference win.  However, they took Colorado Christian, RMAC Tournament semifinalists a year ago, to five sets.
 
Outside hitters Brooke Gardner and Aracely Hernandez pace the Eagles offensively and have 122 (2.71/set) and 114 (2.53/set) kills, respectively.  Meanwhile, Ashton Burditt has amassed 260 digs and leads the RMAC with her 5.78 per set average, a mark that ranks her 19th nationally.    Chandler Hageman is the team's leading blocker with 33 (0.73/set) and is third on the team with 90 kills (2.00/set) while leading the primary hitters with a .231 attack percentage.
 
Setter Madison Webb is averaging 9.04 assists per game to rank seventh in the conference and is second on the team behind Burditt in digs with 123 (2.73/set).  She also has 34 kills and is hitting .411.
 
As a squad, the Eagles rank 10^th or below in all seven team statistical categories.
 
The Mavericks had dominated the series with the Eagles, winning every year dating back to and including 1996.  The Mavericks have not even lost a set at home against the Eagles since 2003 winning each of the last eight home matches against them in straight sets.
 
About MSU Denver
 
The Roadrunners are 7-5 overall and 3-1 in RMAC play after winning their first three conference matches against Adams State, Fort Lewis and Colorado Christian before falling in five sets to Denver rival Regis, ranked 23^rd nationally, in five sets on Saturday evening.  They went 2-2 at each of their early season tournaments including the Colorado Premier Challenge, where they defeated Texas A&M-Commerce and Saint Leo (Fla.), part of their tough early season schedule.
 
Taylor Duryea and Samantha Sturges lead the team with 161 and 158 kills, respectively, and are second and third in the RMAC with their stellar 3.50 and 3.43 per set averages.  Duryea also ranks fifth in the conference for service aces at 0.35 per set.
 
Meanwhile, Alyssa Kelling is seventh in the RMAC with her .291 attack percentage. 
 
Led by Lyric Hebert, who is fourth in the RMAC with her 4.96-dig per set average (228 total), the Roadrunners lead the conference in digging at 16.61 per set.  They also stand just one spot below the Mavericks in opponent hitting percentage (.165), service aces (1.39/set) and are third in the RMAC in team kills at 13.20 per set.
 
The Mavericks and Roadrunners played three times in a span of 11 days in the late going of last year.  MSU Denver won all three matches, including a RMAC Tournament quarterfinal, and also ended CMU's 2016 season in the NCAA South Central Regional after winning both regular season matches.
 
However, the Mavericks won all three meetings between the teams in 2015, including a RMAC Tournament semifinal in Golden, and had won four straight prior to the start of the Roadrunner's 6-match winning streak in the series in 2016.
 
Up next
 
After this weekend's home matches, the Mavericks will remain home for two more matches facing No. 23 Regis on Sept. 28 and Colorado Christian a day later.  They then play all but two of their final nine regular season matches on the road.