TAVARES, Fla.— The Colorado Mesa University Beach Volleyball team finished fourth in their first ever appearance at the American Volleyball Coaches Association (AVCA) Small College Beach Championships, which wrapped up here at Hickory Point Beach on Sunday afternoon.
The Mavericks, who had gone 4-1 on the opening two days of the 12-team tournament to advance to the Gold Bracket semifinals, fell to Texas A&M-Kingsville by a 3-2 count in the Sunday semifinals before dropping the third place match to Spring Hill (Ala.) by a 5-0 score.
Tampa, which had been the only team to defeat the Mavericks in the pool portion of the tournament, defeated defending champion Texas A&M-Kingsville in the championship match.
With Sunday's results, CMU wraps up the dual meet portion of their season with a 7-11 record, setting a new school-record for single season wins.
Against the Javelinas, the Mavericks won the No. 4 and No. 5 matches.
The No. 4 pair of
Ara Norwood and
Holly Schmidt defeated Melanie Casteel and Taylor Noga, 21-11, 21-15. They lead the team with nine wins this season, which is a new single-season program record. They were 5-1 on the sand over the weekend.
Meanwhile,
Magdalena Dabrowski and
Kerstin Layman won for the eighth time this season, taking a 25-23, 7-21, 16-14 thriller over Nicole Murff and Christina Garagasin.
All five of the matches against Spring Hill (20-11) were wrapped up in two sets.
The Mavericks are slated to wrap up their season on Saturday at the Rocky Mountain Collegiate Women's Sand 2's Championships in Broomfield, Colorado. The Mavericks went 1-2-3 in that pairs tournament and won the team points title in 2018.
