GRAND JUNCTION, Colo.— The Colorado Mesa University Volleyball team will begin the 2019 season this weekend as one of eight teams at the Oredigger Classic, which is being hosted by the Colorado School of Mines in Golden and the Orediggers' Lockridge Arena.
 
The Mavericks, one of three Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference teams in the field, will face Fresno Pacific (11 a.m.) and Lubbock Christian (4 p.m.) on Friday before facing No. 8 Northern State and Dallas Baptist in back-to-back matches on Saturday at 2:30 and 5:30 p.m., respectively.
 
The host Orediggers, another RMAC rival in UCCS and Alaska-Fairbanks will also be at the classic-style event, being run on two courts.  The Mavericks will not play any of those opponents.
 
Links to live statistics and video streams of all the matches can be found on Mines' tournament webpage.
 
Pre-Season Picks
 
Coming off a RMAC Tournament title and their fourth NCAA Division II Tournament appearance in the past five years, the Mavericks have been picked to finish second in the RMAC this year, according to the preseason coaches' poll, which was announced on Aug. 14.  In the poll, the Mavericks received four first place votes and 209 total points from the conference's 16 head coaches, who each ranked their opponents 1-15 without voting for their own squad.

Defending RMAC regular season champion Colorado School of Mines received nine first place votes and topped the poll with 214 points while Dixie State was selected third out of the conference's 16 teams with 204 points while picking up the other three first place votes.
 
Highest Ranking RMAC team
 
The Mavericks were also amongst the "others receiving votes and listed on two or more ballots" category of the AVCA Division II Top 25 Coaches' Poll, which was announced on Aug. 20.  CMU was the highest ranking of three RMAC teams in that category and the poll overall with 58 points.  That is the 27^th highest point total overall.

Mines (30) and Dixie State (6) were also receiving votes.
 
No. 10 Tarleton State and No. 20 Texas A&M-Commerce were the only two South Central Region teams in the top 25.  Angelo State also received 16 votes.
 
The Mavericks have just two matches scheduled against top-25 teams, the first of which comes on Saturday against No. 8 Northern State.  The other will be just five days later on Sept. 12 at No. 18 Drury (Mo.).
 
Defending national champion Tampa received 43 first place votes and topped the poll with 1,142 points.  Cal State San Bernardino, Western Washington, Washburn and Concordia-St. Paul round out the top 5.
 
Fleming in year No. 15
 
The 2019 season will be the Mavericks' 15th under Head Coach Dave Fleming, who has racked up 268 career wins (268-148) and a .644 career winning percentage.  Fleming took over the helm of the program in 2005 and is just the fourth head coach in the program's 35-year history.  He has guided the Mavericks to seven NCAA Division II National Tournament berths, a 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.
 
All-American middles
 
The Mavericks return a pair of all-America middle blockers in 2019.  Kasie Gilfert, who also plays on the right side, became the Mavericks' initial Division II First Team AVCA All-American in 2018, selected by a committee of member coaches.  She also earned First Team All-America honors from the D2CCA (Division II Conference Commissioners Association), which were selected by a nation-wide vote of sports information directors.  The Parker, Colorado native who joined CMU's program in January, 2018 after transferring from Division I Northern Arizona, was also tabbed as the South Central Region Player of the Year by both organizations and was named as the RMAC Player of the Year as well, becoming the first Maverick to earn those honors as well.
 
Meanwhile, Camille Smith, who also hails from Parker, earned Honorable Mention All-America honors from the AVCA and was named to that organization's All-South Central Region team for her 2018 junior season efforts.  Now, a senior, Smith was also a First Team All-RMAC selection a year ago.
 
Record Breaking and Statistical Title winning season
 
In 2019, Gilfert broke the RMAC and CMU record for hitting percentage as she hit .451 with 413 kills and just 71 errors on 759 attempts.  That mark was the best in all divisions of NCAA volleyball and was the best Division II mark in four years (2014).
 
The mark also smashed the former CMU record of .389, set way back in 1987 by Phyllis Jennings and easily surpassed the former RMAC record of .417, set way back in 2004 by former Nebraska-Kearney great Erin Gudmundson.
 
Golden in Golden
 
The Mavericks fared very well in Mines' Lockridge Arena last year, going a perfect 3-0.  They defeated the Orediggers, receiving votes in the national poll at the time, on Oct. 27, 2018 in an 5-set RMAC match and then won both the RMAC Tournament Semifinal and Championship match on the Orediggers' home court.  CMU defeated Dixie State to avenge two regular seasons defeats in a 4-set semifinal match and then swept MSU Denver in three sets to win the tournament crown, just CMU's second in program history.
 
This weekend's tournament will also mark the third time in the past four years that the Mavericks will have opened the campaign at the Oredigger Classic.  They went 2-2 in both 2016 and 2017.
 
Familiar D-I Transfer
 
For the second straight year, the Mavericks have welcomed a Division I transfer into the program.  Maddi Foutz, who made 63 appearances and 43 starts as a defensive specialist over the past two seasons for in-state power Colorado State, has joined the Maverick program this year after Kasie Gilfert transferred into the Maverick program in 2018 while going on to win Regional Player of the Year and First Team All-America honors.
 
Foutz, who prepped at Bayfield High School, is familiar with the program coming to several CMU camps while growing up.  Her mother Terene, who was her high school and Four Corners Volleyball Club coach, played for and was an assistant coach for the Mavericks as well.
 
Foutz is expected to battle with Maverick sophomore Kerstin Layman for the starting libero job this year, which will be a storyline to follow following the graduation of 2018 senior and multiple-time RMAC selection Taylor Woods, who became CMU's rally-scoring era leader for career digs last season.  Foutz could also see time at the outside hitter position.
 
Other new faces
 
The Mavericks also added five new true freshman to the roster in 2019, many of whom could see significant playing time and perhaps starting roles.  Those freshman hail from four states and include two from Colorado in Cherokee Trail High School product Savannah Spitzer, a 5-foot-11 middle blocker and right side, and 5-foot-10 Erie High School graduate Haley Hahn, who plays the same positions.
 
Fleming is also high on West Palm Beach, Florida native Maranda Theleus, a high-flying right side and outside hitter.  New Mexico is also represented on the Maverick roster this year thanks to the addition of freshman middle blocker Courtney Moore from Farmington, New Mexico's Piedra Vista High School. Standing at 6-foot-3, she is the tallest Maverick on the roster.
 
Meanwhile, libero Morgan O'Donnell has joined the program from Buda, Texas and Akins High School.  She will give sophomore setter and right side Hannah Bokal, an El Paso native, some Lone Star state company on this year's roster.
 
Jade Pascale, a former high school teammate of Foutz at Bayfield High School, also returns to the Maverick roster for her first competitive collegiate action after redshirting in 2018 due to injury.
 
Setter battle
 
The Mavericks and head coach Dave Fleming will also have a battle at the setter position with three very capable floor bosses fighting it out for the role or roles.  The Mavericks ran a 6-2 attack throughout the 2018 campaign with Ara Norwood and Samantha Ritter seeing the most floor time.  Bokal also saw significant playing time.  Norwood, a junior in 2019, started all 32 matches last year leading the team with 677 assists en-route to Honorable Mention All-RMAC honors as a sophomore.
 
Meanwhile, Ritter, now a senior, earned the same honors when she was a sophomore in 2017, as she tallied 1,008 assists in a more traditional one-setter system.  Ritter had 418 last year playing in 27 matches splitting rotations with Norwood.   Bokal appeared in 15 matches as a freshman in 2018, doling out 158 assists.
 
Steady on the outside
 
The Mavericks return four regular starters in 2019 with the aforementioned Kasie Gilfert, Camille Smith and Ara Norwood.  The other is senior Katie Scherr, who is ready to take the mantle as the team's top outside hitter following the graduation of 3-time All-RMAC and 2017 Honorable Mention AVCA All-American Mackenzie Edwards.  Scherr finished with 221 kills, fourth most as a team last year, and was also tied for second on the 2018 squad in service aces (22) and third in digs (223). 
 
In 81 career matches over the first three years of her career, Scherr has accumulated 536 kills and 453 digs, raising her numbers each year.  She started all but one of CMU's 31 matches last year and has made 60 career starts in total.
 
The Mavericks are also deep at the position with juniors Hailey Crane and Allison Smith coming in as the most experienced in the position.  Sophomores Ashton Reese, Holly Schmidt and Emily Tucker are also versatile options on the outside as are Foutz, Pascale and Theleus.
 
About Fresno Pacific
 
The Mavericks will open the season against the Fresno Pacific Sunbirds, who are coming off a 7-24 season in 2018.  They have a new head coach this year in Shasta Millhollin, who left William Jessup University as that school's winningest head coach.  Milhollin took over in April for Tracy Ainger-Schulte, who stepped down from the program at the end of March.
 
The Sunbirds will be without their two All-Pac West selections and their top two hitters in 2018, a year that saw them finish tied for ninth out of 12 teams in the conference with a 6-16 Pac West record.  However, sophomore middle blockers Jaalyn Sotoa-Stuebin and Mikayla Kennedy are both back and were the team's top two blockers last year and combined for more than 350 kills.
 
They were picked 10^th out of 12 teams in this year's Preseason PacWest poll.
 
About Lubbock Christian
 
The Lady Chaps have been picked to finish sixth in the Lone Star Conference's preseason poll as one of several newcomers to that league.  In 2018, they won their first Heartland Conference regular season title going 21-9 overall and 10-2 in the conference.
 
They return three All-Heartland Conference selections in 2019, including Setter of the Year Bradi Marshall.  They will also have a new interim head coach in Mandy Polk, who took over for Jennifer Lawrence, now an LCU athletic administrator.

Outside hitter Ashley Vanfleet also returns for her senior season after recording 322 kills a year ago, second most on the squad.
 
About Northern State
 
The Wolves will begin the 2019 season highly touted coming off a 2018 campaign, which saw them win their first NSIC Championship in program history while finishing with a No. 10 ranking in the final AVCA poll.  After their 26-5 (17-3 NSIC) campaign that ended with setbacks to fellow top 10 teams in the semifinals of the NSIC Tournament and the opening round of the NCAA Central Regional, they have been picked to repeat as NSIC champions ahead of perennial powers Concordia-St. Paul and Minnesota Duluth and enter 2019 ranked eighth in the AVCA Preseason Poll.
 
They and 2018 NSIC Coach of the Year Brent Aldridge return six key contributors from last season, including three All-NSIC picks and two AVCA All-Americans in redshirt junior setter Ashley Rozell and Jaiden Langlie. Rozell was an AVCA Honorable Mention selection and recorded a school-record 1,375 assists while leading the Wolves to the nation's top attack percentage of .292.
 
Langlie, a junior libero and defensive specialist, led the defensive with 504 digs a year ago.

About Dallas Baptist
 
The Patriots also make the move to the Lone Star Conference this year after finishing 12-17 overall and 5-7 in the final year of the Heartland Conference last year.  They have been picked 13^th in this year's 18-team LSC poll.
 
Veteran coach Cathy Kokel returns each of her top three hitters from last year's squad but must replace their lone All-Heartland Conference selection in Katie Nicholson, who had 94 blocks last year.  Leading the list of returners is Brooke Clark, who paced the team with 257 kills and 297 ½ total points a year ago.
 
Series Histories
 
The Mavericks have not previously played Fresno Pacific or Northern State in at least their available match-by-match records (1995).  They are a perfect 6-0 against Dallas Baptist in that time and have faced the Patriots twice in Golden, winning 2012 and 2016 opening-weekend matches in 3-set sweeps.  This weekend's match will also be the third in the last four years against Lubbock Christian.  The Mavericks won both of those matches in 2016 and 2017.
 
Up Next
 
After this weekend's tournament, the Mavericks will make their longest trip of the regular season competing at the Drury Invitational in Springfield, Missouri from Sept. 12-14.  The Mavericks open that tournament on Thursday, Sept. 12 against the host and 18^th-ranked Drury Panthers.  They will also play three other Missouri schools in Truman State of Kirksville, Northwest Missouri State of Maryville and Missouri Western State of St. Joseph at that tournament before beginning RMAC play on Sept. 20 at New Mexico Highlands.