GRAND JUNCTION, Colo.— The Colorado Mesa University Mavericks will begin defense of their Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference Tournament title on Tuesday when they head to Golden for a re-match with the Colorado School of Mines Orediggers.
 
Both teams finished 13-5 in conference play throughout the regular season although the Orediggers earned the No. 4 seed and the right to host Tuesday's match by virtue of their 5-set head-to-head win over the fifth-seeded Mavericks just 10 days ago on Nov. 8.
 
Mines, which is continuing to receive votes in the AVCA Division II Top 25 Coaches' Poll, is 20-6 overall.  The Mavericks finished the regular season with a 17-9 overall record.
 
Live streaming of the match, which will begin at 7 p.m., can be found on the RMAC Network.  Live statistics will also be available.  Links to both can be accessed above.
 
Tournament Bracket
 
The winner of Tuesday's match-up will advance to the semifinal round of the tournament, which will be played Friday on the campus of the highest remaining seed after the quarterfinal round, most likely to be in Denver. 
 
Specifically, the winner of top-seeded Regis and No. 8 seed UCCS awaits the Mavericks or Orediggers.
 
On the bottom half of the bracket, No. 2 seed MSU Denver will host seventh-seeded Black Hills State while Dixie State will face CSU-Pueblo in the No. 3/6 match-up in St. George, Utah.
 
All four quarterfinal matches are slated for 7 p.m.
 
The championship match will be played Saturday.
 
The Mavericks are 3-5 against the rest of the tournament field this season.
 
Milestone Senior Night
 
The Mavericks completed their regular season with a convincing 3-set sweep of rival Western Colorado University on Friday night in Brownson Arena.  The 25-20, 25-11, 25-22 Senior Night victory was highlighted by a Senior Night festivities and a milestone reaching performance.
 
Senior setter Samantha Ritter recorded 14 assists in the match and became just the tenth Maverick to ever surpass the 2,000 career assist milestone.  She now has 2,001 and reached the milestone early in the third set on a kill by fellow senior Camille Smith.
 
Smith finished the match with 10 kills, three blocks and a .474 hitting percentage.
 
CMU's third senior Katie Scherr had five kills and seven digs.
 
Redshirt junior Kasie Gilfert, who has decided to forgo her final season of athletic eligibility, was also recognized before the match and finished with 13 kills, four blocks while hitting at a .571 clip.
 
Regional Rankings
 
After not being amongst the top 10 in the initial set of NCAA Division II South Central Rankings on Nov. 6, the Mavericks were ranked tenth in the second set, which was released last Wednesday (Nov. 13).

Updated rankings will again be announced by the NCAA Division II Volleyball Committee this Wednesday but will not factor in Tuesday's RMAC Tournament quarterfinal results.  The committee will then announce the NCAA Division II Tournament field next Monday at 5:30 p.m. (Mountain) with a selection show on www.ncaa.com.
 
The regional rankings will determine the seeding and selections for that tournament, which will include eight teams from the South Central Region, made up of the RMAC and Lone Star Conference.  However, the tournament champions from both conferences will earn automatic berths into the field even if they are not in the top 8 of the final set of regional rankings.

The 12-team Lone Star Conference Tournament also begins Tuesday with four first-round matches on campus sites before shifting to Commerce, Texas for the quarterfinals through finals.
 
Tourney Title Defense begins on familiar grounds
 
The Mavericks will begin their RMAC Tournament title defense on some happy hunting grounds.  They won last year's title in Golden and Mines' Lockridge Arena defeating Dixie State in the semifinals and fourth-seeded MSU Denver in the championship match after the Roadrunners had taken down the hosts in the second semifinal.
 
The Mavericks also won at and over Mines in the 2018 regular season and went 3-1 in Lockridge Arena to begin this season during the Oredigger Volleyball Classic.  In total, the Mavericks have won six of their last seven matches in the arena.
 
Home Court Success
 
Friday night's win enabled the Mavericks to finish the regular season with an 8-1 home record.  They have now won 17 of their last 19 home matches after going 9-1 in Brownson Arena last year.
 
The home-court success is nothing new as the Mavericks are 52-10 (.839) at home over the past six seasons since 2014.
 
The Mavs were also 9-1 at home in 2015 before posting 6-3 home-court records in 2016 and 2017.  CMU was also an impressive 14-1 in 2014 en-route to a RMAC Tournament Championship and NCAA South Central Regional final appearance and have had winning records at home in each of the last seven years since 2012, going 67-19 (.779) at home in that that span.
 
Leading hitter
 
Kasie Gilfert hit at a .571 clip in Friday's win over Western and in the process raised her season-long hitting percentage to .393, a mark that now leads the RMAC by two points.  She has now hit at a .500 or better efficiency five times this season.
 
In 2018, Gilfert won the NCAA statistical title (all divisions) and set a RMAC and CMU record of .451, which was the best Division II mark since 1999.
 
She is now hitting at a .422 clip for her CMU career, which ranks her fourth in Division II history for players with 1,500 or more attempts.  Gilfert now qualifies for that category and has taken 1,517 attempts in her 2-year Maverick career.

Triple Second
 
Kasie Gilfert also ranks second in the RMAC in three other statistical categories entering the post-season.  She has 372 total kills, good for an average of 4.09 per set.  She is also averaging 4.69 total points per set.
 
Mines' Abby Tiesman leads the RMAC with her 4.70 point per set average while South Dakota Mines' Dana Thomson finished the season with 459 kills (4.21/set) and currently sits third in total points per set at 4.54.
 
Gilfert also ranks 13^th in the NCAA Division II statistics for hitting percentage after setting an RMAC and CMU record mark of .451 last year.  She also stands 16^th nationally for points per set and 22^nd for kills per set this season.
 
Smith also ranked
 
Fellow Maverick middle Camille Smith is also ranked amongst the RMAC's top 10 players in those categories.  She currently sits fourth in hitting percentage (.369), seventh for kills per set (3.02) and eighth for points per set (3.61).
 
Highly ranked 6-2 offense
 
The Mavericks' offense has been clicking this year as the Mavericks are second in the RMAC for both kills (14.40) and assists (13.53) per set.  They also rank amongst the nation's top 10 in both categories, standing seventh for assists and ninth for kills per set.
 
Fleming in year No. 15
 
The 2019 season is the Mavericks' 15th under Head Coach Dave Fleming, who has racked up 285 career wins (285-157) and a .645 career winning percentage, including this year's 17-9 mark thus far.  Fleming, who leads all current RMAC coaches in wins, took over the helm of the program in 2005 and is just the fourth head coach in the program's 35-year history. 
 
He and Adams State's Lindy Mortensen, who also started in 2005, have the longest current tenures of coaches in the RMAC.
 
Fleming has guided the Mavericks to seven NCAA Division II National Tournament berths, 2014 RMAC Regular Season and Tournament titles, last year's RMAC Tournament title 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, including in 2018, when the Mavericks went 24-7 to enjoy their second best season in Fleming's tenure, only shy of the program's 29-4 season in 2014.
 
Top two coaches
 
Tuesday's match-up will also be a chess match between the RMAC's two winningest active RMAC coaches.  Mines' Jamie Magalei has 276 career wins since taking over the Oredigger program in 2008 after a year as an assistant coach for the program in 2007.
 
Crunching the post-season numbers and Mines rivalry
 
The Mavericks have qualified for every RMAC Tournament since 2012 and are 14-11 in it under Fleming, who is guiding the Mavericks into the post-season for the 14^th time. 
 
The Mavericks are 7-6 in the quarterfinal round under Fleming and won the tournament in 2014 and again last year (2018).
 
The Mavericks are 1-3 against the Orediggers in the post-season under Fleming last defeating them in a 2008 semifinal in Kearney, Nebraska.
 
The last playoff meeting with Mines came in 2015 when the Orediggers won the 2015 championship match in Golden.  That match went five sets and was ultimately decided by just four points.
 
About Mines
 
The Orediggers will enter Tuesday's match with a 20-6 overall record.  They have won their last five matches.  Two of those wins came in five sets while the other three were in straight sets.
 
The Orediggers, who are receiving votes in the latest AVCA Division II Coaches' Poll, are 10-3 at home this season and have won four straight in Lockridge Arena since suffering a 5-set home loss to South Dakota Mines on Oct. 5.
 
Senior middle blocker Abby Tiesman leads the team with 352 kills and leads the RMAC while ranking 15th nationally with her 4.70 total point per set average.  She also sits third in the RMAC for hitting percentage at .391, total kills (352) and kills per set (3.78) and is just inside the top 10 for blocks per set at (1.02).  She has recorded 95 blocks in total.
 
As a team, the Orediggers lead the conference in kills (14.74) and assists (14.00) per set.  They also lead the country in assists and rank and fourth in the country for kills per set, largely thanks to the play of sophomore setter Drew Stokes.  She is second in the country and leads the RMAC with her 12.32 assist per set average.  She has doled out 1,133 assists this season after earning AVCA National Freshman of the Year plaudits in 2018.
 
In addition to Tiesman, Stokes often sets the ball to junior outside hitter Lindsey Jin and sophomore Amanda Donais.  The latter has 222 kills, an average of 2.64 per set.  Jin is third on the team in total kills with 205, a 2.70 per average, but has played in just 76 of the team's 93 total sets.
 
Jin had a career-high 23 kills in the earlier meeting the Mavericks while fellow outside hitter Rose Stuewe, also a freshman, had a career-high 19 in that match.
 
The Mavericks did hold Donais to just five while Tiesman had 14.  However, she also had seven hitting errors and hit just .159 against the Mavericks.
 
Elle Duis leads the back-row with 395 digs, good for a 4.25 per set average to rank eighth in the RMAC.  She also has 23 service aces and is one of three Orediggers with 20 or more.  Tiesman has 27 to lead the team while Stokes has 24.
 
Series Histories
 
The rivalry between the Mavericks and Orediggers has been intense as of late with four of the last six matches dating back to 2015 going five sets.  The Orediggers have won three of those four and four of the last seven matches overall.  The Orediggers also won four straight in the series from 2011-13 and lead the series 13-11 since the turn of the century.
 
Fleming is 8-11 against the Orediggers in his career as the Mavs' head coach.