TAVARES, Fla.— The Colorado Mesa University Beach Volleyball Team had a successful start in their first ever appearance in the American Volleyball Coaches Association Small College Beach Championships posting 5-0 wins over Principia College and Tusculum University before a 3-plus hour rain delay forced the postponement of their final Friday pool play match against the University of Tampa (Fla.) to Saturday morning.
 
The Mavericks (5-8), seeded fourth out of 12 teams in the NCAA Division II/III portion of the competition played here at Hickory Point Beach, matched their 2017 and 2018 school record for wins in a season with Friday's triumphs and will hope to continue their momentum in the Pool C decider against the third-seeded Spartans, slated for 9 a.m. EDT (7 a.m. Mountain).
 
That match will determine which of four 3-team Challenge Round groups the Mavericks will be placed in for their other two matches on Saturday.
 
CMU dropped just one out of 21 sets on the day as junior Katie Scherr became the Mavericks' all-time winningest player as she teamed for a pair of wins with Portia Valadez at No. 1.
 
Scherr now has 16 career triumphs, one more than her 2018 partner Taylor Woods.
 
Against Principia, a NCAA Division III opponent out of Elsah, Illinois, Scherr and Valadez won over Sophia Hathaway and Hayden Warner, 21-15, 21-14 after Magdalena Dabrowski and Kerstin Layman had scored a 21-11, 21-9 victory in the No. 5 match.
 
Ara Norwood and Holly Schmidt then won 21-11, 21-7 in the No. 4 match to clinch the team win over the tenth-seeded Sandy Panthers, who fell to 5-11 on the year.
 
Lindy Dixon and Hailey Crane also won in two sets at No. 3 while Samantha Ritter and Macie Lachemann clinched the Mavs' first sweep of the campaign with a 3-set (21-17, 14-21, 15-10) win over Devon Marunde and Makena Patterson in the No. 2 match.
 
The Mavericks were just as dominant against Tusculum, a Division II institution from Greeneville, Tennessee.  All five Maverick pairs won in straight sets as Scherr officially broke the Maverick record when she and Valadez won 21-12, 21-16 over Haley Davis and Melissa Mazur in the No. 1 match, which put the Mavericks on the board.
 
Dabrowski and Layman were the most dominant against the ninth-seeded Pioneers (7-13) as they won 21-8, 21-11 over Katelyn Weems and Jordan Zaleski to cap the win after Norwood and Schmidt had clinched the team win with a No. 4 victory.
 
Meanwhile, Ashton Reese and Jordan Cody scored a 21-16, 21-15 victory over a Florida Southern College pair in the Best of the Rest Pairs Tournament reserved for players outside of the 10-person team lineups. 
 
Hannah Bokal also played in that tournament, partnering with a Webber (Fla.) University's RayGene Garner.  Bokal and Garner fell 21-11, 21-14 to Tampa's Sarah Moore and Danielle Bierman.
 
The Best of the Rest Tournament will continue on Saturday morning as well.