PUEBLO, Colo.— The Colorado Mesa University Mavericks came from a set and 19-13 down in the fourth to force a fifth set but eventually came up on the short end of a 5-set Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference volleyball decision with the host CSU-Pueblo ThunderWolves on Saturday afternoon at the Massari Arena.
 
The ThunderWolves won that fifth set 15-9 to take the 21-25, 25-19, 25-18, 22-25, 15-9 victory after falling in five sets on Friday night at home to Western and improved to 3-7 overall and 1-1 in the RMAC with Saturday's win.
 
The Mavericks slipped to .500 in terms of both their overall (5-5) and RMAC (1-1) records.
 
Kasie Gilfert finished with a match and season-high 24 kills, tied for the second highest single-match total in her career, and hit .467 to lead the Mavericks.  Hailey Crane also had a career-high 12 kills while Katie Scherr and Maranda Theleus put down 10 each.
 
However, the ThunderWolves had five players in double figures for kills and recorded 19 blocks as a team throughout the match.  The Mavericks had just five, including four that involved Gilfert.
 
CMU was also guilty of 12 other hitting errors, eight service errors and six reception errors while CSU-Pueblo hit .303 as a team.
 
The Mavs won the final three points of the first set to take it but found themselves behind 13-9 in the second.   They then scored back-to-back points on kills by Theleus and Crane but watched the ThunderWolves go on another 4-0 run to pull ahead 17-11 while going on to tie the match.
 
The ThunderWolves then got out to a 7-2 lead in the third set and built the lead to eight (20-12) before a 4-0 Maverick run featuring kills by Camille Smith, Gilfert and Crane as well as one of their blocks cut the deficit in half.  However, the ThunderWolves would go on to win five of the next seven points to take a 2-1 overall lead.
 
The hosts would then build a 19-13 lead in the fourth set before a pair of 3-0 Maverick runs cut the deficit to 21-19.  The ThunderWolves then went up 22-19 on a Maverick hitting error before the Mavericks suddenly rattled off seven straight points to take the set and send the match to the decisive fifth.
 
That momentum would be short-lived as the ThunderWolves jumped out to a 5-2 lead in the decider.
 
However, the Mavericks came back once again and tied the set at 7 before a kill from Jazzy Espinoza followed by back-to-back service aces gave CSU-Pueblo a 10-7 lead.

Scherr muted the bleeding with a kill but the ThunderWolves would score six of the final seven points to finish off the victory, their first over CMU since 2013, on two consecutive kills by Maddy Wisinewski.
 
The Mavericks will finish off a 3-match conference-opening road swing on Tuesday (Sept. 24) at Western in Gunnison before hosting their home-opener on Friday (Sept. 27) against Westminster.  Both of those matches will commence at 7 p.m.