CHADRON, Neb.— Five Colorado Mesa University players recorded 11 or more kills while two had double-doubles as the balanced Mavericks outlasted a pesky Chadron State College Eagle squad to record a 5-set Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference volleyball win on Saturday night here at the Chicoine Center.
 
The Mavericks, who have now won four of their last five matches, had two potential match points in the third set but failed to close out the Eagles then and were eventually taken to five sets, where they had to overcome a 2-point deficit in the 15-12 deciding set.
 
Both teams hit .176, although the Mavericks had a big 102-84 advantage in digs to make up for a large 17-8 Eagle advantage in blocking.  Offensively, the Mavericks (9-6, 5-2 RMAC) had a 70-52 advantage in total kills as Kasie Gilfert led the charge with a match-high 16 kills.
 
Meanwhile, Camille Smith and Katie Scherr each recorded 13 kills while redshirt junior Hailey Crane matched her career-high with 12 on the pin.  Freshman right side Maranda Theleus also came up big with 11 kills on a team-high .421 night.
 
In the back-row, Kerstin Layman tallied a career-high matching 27 digs while senior setter Samantha Ritter had a monster double-double with 25 assists and a career-high 24 digs.  Junior outside hitter Maddi Foutz also tallied 16 digs while Scherr had 15 to record he second double-double of the year.

Junior setter Ara Norwood was also just a dig shy of a double-double with 30 assists and nine digs.

Shelby Schouten had 13 kills while Chandler Hageman recorded 10 kills and nine blocks, including four solos for the Eagles, who fell to 9-5 and 3-3 in the RMAC.
 
Gilfert (9) and Smith (7) combined for 16 kills in the opening two sets as the Mavericks controlled the early stages of the match.
 
However, they would be tested throughout the third and despite gaining 13-10 and 18-16 leads.

CSC then roared back to take 19-18 and 20-19 leads before the Mavericks went on a 4-1 run to gain a 23-21 lead.  They later gained a 24-23 lead to set up a match point on a Smith kill before a Rylee Greiman kill and Maverick hitting error suddenly gave the Eagles a 25-24 lead.
 
Two Eagle miscues then gave the Mavericks another match point at 26-25 before the Eagles would score the final three points of the set on two CMU mistakes followed a Hageman block.
 
The Mavericks would appear unfazed and built an 11-6 lead in the fourth set before the Eagles later went on a 5-1 run to tie the set at 14. 
 
CMU would then score on three of the next four rallies go up 18-15 but watched the Eagles go on a 5-1 run of their own to gain a 20-19 lead. 
 
The Mavericks then took advantage of two Eagle mistakes to go up 21-20 but after an Eagle kill and service ace, committed back-to-back hitting errors.  Greiman and Hageman then came up with another block to send the match to the fifth.
 
The Eagles would go up 6-4 and 7-5 in that set before two miscues tied it at 7.  The teams continued to trade points and were tied at 8, 9 and 10 and eventually at 12 before three successive kills by Scherr finally put the Eagles, who have not defeated CMU since 1995, away.

The Mavericks evened their road record at 3-3 and their 5-set record at 1-1 with Saturday's win.  They will continue a 4-match road swing next weekend playing at Colorado Christian (6-9, 2-5 RMAC) in Lakewood on Friday (Oct. 11).