GRAND JUNCTION, Colo.— Outside hitters MacKenzie Edwards and Katie Scherr combined for 25 kills as the Colorado Mesa University Volleyball team avenged both their last home loss and their last two post-season ending defeats in one fell swoop, sweeping the visiting MSU Denver Roadrunners on Saturday night in Brownson Arena.
 
The Mavericks hit .270 as a team and held their nemesis to just .098 hitting in the 25-16, 25-20, 25-18 victory as they improved to a perfect 5-0 at home and to 11-4 overall on the campaign.  They have now won eight of their last nine at home dating back to 2017 and are 6-1 in the Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference this year, good enough for a tie for third place and to be just a single match back of the nation's 24^th-ranked Colorado School of Mines Orediggers in the RMAC standings.
 
Mines is 7-0 in conference play while Dixie State University, the only team to defeat the Mavericks in the last 10 matches, is in second place at 6-0.  Those two teams clash next Friday in Golden.
 
MSU Denver, which spoiled CMU's 2017 senior night and then knocked the Mavericks out of the RMAC Tournament in the quarterfinals in Denver last year, fell to 8-6 overall and to 4-2 in the RMAC with the loss. 
 
The Roadrunners, who had also ended Mesa's season in the first round of the 2016 NCAA Division II tournament, had won six straight matches, including the pair of post-season meetings, between the teams over the previous two years.
 
On Saturday, Edwards finished with 13 kills on .333 hitting while Scherr put down a season-high 12 kills.  Kasie Gilfert also contributed eight kills and six blocks following up on her career-high 20 kill effort in Friday night's 3-set win over Chadron State College.
 
Meanwhile, Camille Smith had five kills while Ashton Reese had four while hitting .500.
 
Defensively, the Mavericks finished with a 7-6 edge in total blocks and a 61-47 advantage in total digs as senior libero Taylor Woods matched her Roadrunner counterpart Lyric Hebert with 14 digs.
 
Maverick setter Samantha Ritter also had her second straight double-double with 15 assists and 12 digs while starting setter Ara Norwood also had 17 assists and eight digs for the Mavericks.
 
The Mavericks seized early control of the match with a 5-0 first-set run with Ritter at the service line.  That spurt, which featured a pair of Scherr kills surrounding a timeout, gave the Mavericks a 9-3 lead.
 
They would later extend that advantage to 13-5 on an Edwards kill, one of five in the opening set, before the Roadrunners would claw back to within 14-10.
 
However, the Mavericks came out of a timeout with three consecutive Gilfert and Natalee Todd blocks to build a 17-10 lead that proved to be more than enough to take the early lead.
 
After hitting .344 as a team in the opening set, the Mavericks would have to battle throughout the second, which featured an incredible 14 different ties.  The last was at 19-19 before kills by Gilfert and Scherr, who had six in the opening set, put the Mavericks up 21-19.
 
The Roadrunners would record a block after calling timeout to inch within one (21-20) before a setting error, another Maverick block and two straight hitting errors gave CMU a 2-set lead.
 
The Mavericks would then go on to a use a 7-1 run early in the third set to build a 10-6 lead.  Edwards and Smith both had two kills in that stretch.
 
Edwards would then have two more back-to-back kills to increase the lead to 13-7 before the Roadrunners fought their way to within three on three different occasions including at 17-14.
 
However, a pair of costly miscues would help the Mavericks regain momentum and to eventually finish the match off on a Scherr kill.
 
The Mavericks will remain at home to prepare for another strong challenger in the defending RMAC Champion Regis University Rangers, who will venture into Brownson Arena on Friday at 7 p.m. 
 
The Rangers, who are tied with CMU for third in the conference standings, are one of the hottest teams in the RMAC having won six straight matches to improve to 10-5 overall and to 6-1 in the RMAC.  They are currently ranked 23^rd in the AVCA Division II Coaches' Poll and will host No. 6 Nebraska-Kearney in a Tuesday night non-conference tilt in Denver before heading west on I-70 for Friday's key match.