GRAND JUNCTION, Colo.— The Colorado Mesa University volleyball team played their best defensive matche of their season limiting visiting Adams State University to just 23 kills and a .070 hitting percentage while completing their second 3-set sweep of the weekend on Saturday afternoon here at Brownson Arena.
 
The Mavericks, who had swept Fort Lewis College on Friday evening, recorded 51 digs and had 48 kills in the 25-18, 25-21, 25-18 victory over the Grizzlies and moved to 6-0 at home, 15-8 overall and to 11-4 in Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference play.
 
The Grizzlies fell to 7-17 overall and to 4-11 in conference play with what was their seventh consecutive defeat.
 
Maverick sophomore libero Kerstin Layman tallied 19 digs in the victory while middles Kasie Gilfert and Camille Smith teamed with sophomore outside hitter Holly Schmidt to lead the offensive attack.  Gilfert had 11 kills and hit .409 on 22 swings while Smith added 11 kills while hitting at a .350 clip.  She also had three blocks. 
 
Meanwhile, Schmidt put down a career-high 10 kills on a match-leading 29 swings.
 
Maverick setters Ara Norwood and Samantha Ritter also combined for 36 of the team's 43 assists.  Norwood had 19 of them and added nine digs and a service aces while Ritter had 17 assists and six digs.
 
Hannah Goddard had eight kills to pace the Grizzlies.
 
The Mavericks hit .244 in the opening set and .185 overall but started slowly committing four hitting errors in the opening five rallies before Gilfert and Schmidt combined for four straight kills to give the Mavericks a 12-8 lead after the teams had been knotted at 8.
 
The Mavericks also used another 3-0 run with kills by Hailey Crane, Katie Scherr and Maranda Theleus to go up 19-14 and finished the set off with a 4-0 run.
 
The second set was also tied at 8 before the Mavericks went on a 5-0 that featured four consecutive Grizzly miscues to take a 13-8 cushion.  They would extend that lead to as many as eight at 19-11 and 20-12 before the Grizzlies would pull within 23-21.
 
However, Smith and Gilfert came out of a CMU timeout with kills to give the Grizzlies the set and a 2-0 overall lead.
 
The Mavericks then jumped out to a 5-1 third set lead and grew that advantage to eight points (14-6) while cruising to the 7-point final set win.
 
The 23 kills CMU allowed were the fewest conceded since Oct. 13, 2018 when Westminster managed just 21.
 
The Mavericks will remain at home for their final three matches of the regular season, including a key Friday night (Nov. 8) clash with the Colorado School of Mines (17-6, 10-5 RMAC), which remained just a match  behind the Mavericks for fourth place in the RMAC standings after claiming a 5-set win over second place MSU Denver on Saturday evening in Golden.