LAKEWOOD, Colo.— The Colorado Mesa University Maverick volleyball team won tight 2-point decisions in the first and third sets and rolled to a 25-18 win in the fourth to clinch their tenth match win of the season over host Colorado Christian University on Friday evening here at the CCU Event Center.
 
The Mavericks, who overcame a set point in the third set, have now won five of their last six matches and improved to 10-6 overall and to 6-2 in the Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference setting up a Saturday afternoon (3 p.m.) showdown with No. 16 Regis, which is just a match ahead of the Mavericks, Colorado School of Mines and Dixie State for second place at 7-1 in the RMAC standings.

CMU's lone loss in that stretch has come to conference-leading MSU Denver.
 
Kasie Gilfert led the Maverick offensive attack on Friday with 14 kills in the 4-set (25-23, 22-25, 27-25, 25-18) win.  She also hit a team-best .400 to lead the Mavericks to a .222 to. 179 edge in attack percentage as a team.
 
Meanwhile, CMU true freshman right side Maranda Theleus also put down a career-high 13 while Hailey Crane had 11, including two massively important ones on back-to-back rallies to give the Mavericks the 27-25 third set decision.
 
After dropping the second set, the Mavericks found themselves down 12-9 in a back-and-forth third set, which featured 12 ties and four lead changes.
 
One of those came as the result of a 5-0 Maverick run that put CMU up 14-12.

The Mavs later led by 20-17 margin before the Cougars battled back time and time again to tie the set at 20, 21, 22 and 23.  They then recorded one of their 15 blocks to go up 24-23 before the Mavericks answered back with two points of their own to go up 25-24.
 
CCU responded with a kill of their own before Crane's two kills gave the Mavericks the set and momentum, which carried over to the fourth set.  The Mavs took an early 5-1 lead in that frame and never led by fewer than four points to close out the win, their third straight and sixth in the last seven meetings with Cougars, since 2014.
 
The Mavericks finished the night with a 58-55 edge in total kills and made just eight unforced hitting errors.  They also took advantage of 18 Cougar unforced hitting errors and another 11 service errors.
 
Camille Smith was involved in four of CMU's seven blocks while Gilfert had two solos and three total blocks.  Smith also had nine kills while junior outside hitter Maddi Foutz had seven kills and 10 digs.
 
Setters Ara Norwood and Samantha Ritter each had 26 assists while libero Kerstin Layman, playing just miles from her former Columbine High School stomping grounds, had an impressive 26 digs.
 
CCU's Cali Bahnsen had 17 kills and five blocks while Katie Henry recorded nine blocks to lead the Cougars (6-10, 2-6 RMAC).