GRAND JUNCTION, Colo.— After getting out to a 2-0 start (1-0 RMAC) at home, the Colorado Mesa University Volleyball team will make their first road trip of the 2021 season when they travel to Salt Lake City and Westminster College's Behnken Field House for a pair of non-conference matches.  The Mavericks are now slated to face Northwest Nazarene University at 2 p.m. before taking on the host Griffins in a 5 p.m. match, which will not count in the Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference standings.
 
The match against the Northwest Nazarene Nighthawks of Nampa, Idaho is yet another schedule change as Western Colorado was originally slated to be part of the 3-team pod.  However, COVID protocols have forced the Mountaineers out of the plans and Northwest Nazarene was added as a replacement team. 
 
The Nighthawks and Griffins will face each other at 11 a.m. to begin the day.
 
How to Follow the Mavs
 
Due to COVID-19 restrictions, fans will not be permitted to attend.  However, live streams of both matches can be found on the RMAC Network.  Live statistics can also be viewed on Westminster's website.  A full recap of the day's events will also be posted on www.cmumavericks.com following the matches.
 
Flying high in season-openers
 
The Mavericks got off to a strong start on Sunday as they swept their season and RMAC-opener against Regis, which was ranked fifth in the AVCA Division II Coaches Top 25 Preseason Poll on Sunday morning.  They then came back in the afternoon to post a come-from-behind 4-set win over CSU Pueblo in a non-conference match.
 
Taking down the ranked team
 
Sunday's win over the fifth-ranked Rangers was the Mavericks' over a ranked team in five tries, a span that went back to Sept. 24, 2018, when the Mavs defeated the then No. 24 ranked Rangers at home in five sets.  The Mavericks played three nationally-ranked teams in the fall of 2019 and had four other matches against teams receiving votes in the national poll, going a combined 0-6.
 
In 2018, when the Mavericks won the RMAC Tournament before advancing to the South Central Regional Tournament semifinals, the Mavericks played three nationally-ranked foes, including the Rangers.  They also won the last four of six matches against teams listed in the receiving votes category of the weekly poll that year.
 
Prior to Sunday, the last time that the Mavericks played a team ranked in the nation's top five was on Sept. 11, 2015, when the Mavericks dropped a 5-set match then No. 2 ranked Southwest Minnesota State in Denver, and specifically the Regis Fieldhouse.
 
Prior to Sunday, the Mavs' last win over a top-5 team was on Sept. 12, 2014, when they recorded a 3-set sweep over No. 5 Central Missouri.  That match was also played at Regis Fieldhouse.
 
Triple Double-Double
 
Three different Mavericks recorded a double-double in Sunday afternoon's victory over CSU Pueblo.  Outside hitters Maddi Foutz and Holly Schmidt each recorded their first of their career while senior setter Ara Norwood tallied the 14th of her career.  Foutz tallied 13 kills, a career-high, and 15 digs while hitting .367 .  Meanwhile, Schmidt set new career-highs for both kills (14) and digs (15).   Norwood finished with 22 assists and 12 digs.  Starting setter Sabrina VanDeList, a freshman, was just two digs shy of a double-double as well as she finished with 24 assists and eight digs, the highest total of her young career.
 
The last time that three Mavericks recorded a double-double in the same match was on Oct. 19, 2018 when Mackenzie Edwards, Norwood and Samantha Ritter all did so in a 4-set win at Adams State.
 
Roaring from the start
 
Redshirt junior fight side Ashton Reese came out firing in Sunday's victory over Regis as she matched her career-high with 13 kills while hitting a career-best .611.   The 13-kill total, which was also a match-high, equaled her career-best effort, which came at home on Sept. 27, 2019 against Westminster.  Reese has now been in double-figures for kills five times in her career.  All of those efforts have come in her last eight appearances.
 
Stepping up on short notice
 
Junior Emily Tucker made her first two career starts on Sunday as CMU's libero.  She was a replacement for 2019 Honorable Mention All-RMAC selection Kerstin Layman, who was unavailable due to injury.  The Palisade native took advantage of the opportunity and finished with a team-high 14 digs in the 3-set win over Regis and then came back to tally 15 in the victory over CSU Pueblo.  Tucker also had a career-high five service aces in that victory, the most of any Maverick in a single-match since Taylor Woods recorded six in a Nov. 6, 2018 RMAC Tournament victory over Colorado Christian.
 
Newcomer debuts
 
Seven new faces to the Maverick roster, including six freshman all saw action for the first time as a Maverick on Sunday.  Highlighting the bunch was freshman setter Sabrina VanDeList, who started both matches, recording a combined 46 assists and 13 digs in CMU's two victories.  The Severance, Colorado native and Fort Collins High School product had an individual set percentage of .434 on the day, including a .524 mark in the sweep over Regis as the Mavericks hit .324 as a team.  That figure is the highest team hitting percentage since Sept. 20, 2019, when the Mavs hit .408 as a team in a 3-set sweep of New Mexico Highlands.
 
Fellow freshman Gabrielle Vogt, who played on the right side, interchanged with VanDeList in the Mavericks' 6-2 offensive attack.  The Eaglecrest High School graduate recorded 17 kills in the two matches, reaching double figures with 10 in the win over CSU Pueblo.
 
The other newcomers came in more reserve roles with Hahni Johnson of Anchorage, Alaska's Dimond High School, appearing in both matches while Tye Wedhorn, a transfer from Fort Lewis, Paige Gwaltney, Sierra Hunt and Caroline Pung all made their Maverick debuts in the match over CSU Pueblo.  Pung, a Chatfield High School product, started both the second and third sets of that match in the middle blocker spot and tallied two blocks and a kill.  Gwaltney hails from Sacramento, California and went to Rio Americano High School while Hunt is a product of Rangeview High School in Aurora, Colorado.
 
Home Court Success
 
The Mavericks' long-standing home-court success continued on Sunday with the two season-starting victories.  The Mavericks are now 56-10 (.848) at home over the past seven seasons since 2014.
 
In 2019, the Mavericks had yet another strong record at home, going 8-1.  The Mavericks have won 17 of their last 19 matches at home after going 9-1 in Brownson Arena during the 2018 campaign.
 
The Mavs were also 9-1 at home in 2015 before posting 6-3 home-court records in 2016 and 2017.  CMU was also an impressive 15-1 in 2014 en-route to a RMAC Tournament Championship and NCAA South Central Regional final appearance and have had winning records at home in each of the last eight since 2012, going 70-19 (.787) at home in that that span.
 
With the addition of the CSU Pueblo match, which was a late addition to the schedule, the Mavericks are slated to play six regular season home matches over three dates this season.  Their next home matches will be on Friday, Feb. 11 against Colorado Christian and Westminster, who will also play each other in the middle match of another 3-team, 3-day pod that day.
 
RMAC's winningest coach
 
Maverick Head Coach Dave Fleming is in his 16^th season with the Mavericks and is the winningest active RMAC Coach with 287 career victories. He is 287-158 in his previous 15 seasons, good for a .645 winning percentage.  His tenure is equal to the longest in the RMAC, amongst active coaches.
 
In his time at CMU, Fleming has guided the Mavericks to seven NCAA Division II National Tournament berths, two Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference Tournament titles (2014, 2018), a 2014 RMAC Regular Season and Tournament titles and three RMAC West Division crowns (2005, 2009, 2010).  The Mavericks have had winning campaigns in all but one of his seasons and his teams have reached the 20-win mark five times, most recently in 2018, when they went 24-7.  Fleming was also named as the RMAC Co-Coach of the Year last year in a vote of his peers.  He also earned that honor outright in 2009 and 2014.
 
About Northwest Nazarene
 
The Nighthawks are coming off a 13-14 2019 season.  They went 9-11 in the Great Northwest Athletic Conference, finishing in a tie for seventh out of 11 teams in the conference standings.  On the opening weekend of last season, they went 1-1 against RMAC teams falling in five sets to Colorado Christian before sweeping tournament host Dixie State.
 
The GNAC will not have a formal conference schedule for traditional fall sports this spring, but has given member institutions to autonomy to scheduled matches as possible.
 
Eighth-year had coach Doug English's squad has taken advantage of that flexibility and will open their season on Wednesday at Division I Eastern Washington before heading to Salt Lake City to face the Mavericks and Westminster Griffins on Saturday.
 
Redshirt junior Brooke Foster highlights English's roster after earning First Team All-GNAC and AVCA Honorable Mention All-America honors in 2019.  She led NNU in kills, total points and aces that season and ranked second in the RMAC for kills (3.62) and points per set (4.25) while finishing fifth with her 0.43-service ace per set average.
 
NNU also returns there other three leading attackers in Abbey Blum (272), Natalie Sullivan (224) and Tayler Markland (184), who combined for 680 kills in 2019. 
 
English will have to replace his starting setter Megan Nelson and leading defenders Kayla Sale and Lexi Ward.  Nelson recorded 976 assists (9.48/set) last season while Sale had 443 digs (4.39/set) from her starting libero position.  Ward led the Nighthawks with 78 blocks in 2019.
 
About Westminster
 
The Griffins (1-1, 0-1 RMAC) began their season last Friday splitting a doubleheader at UCCS.  They lost the first match, which was a conference tilt, in five sets but came back for a 4-set win in the nightcap, which does not figure into the RMAC standings.  That victory was the Griffins' first all-time against the Mountain Lions.  Audrey Green (21) and Malinda Messner (19) combined for 40 kills on the day.
 
Defensively, Holland VandeMerwe recorded 36 digs in nine sets.  Messner and Avery Alger each had seven blocks.
 
In 2019, Green finished fourth in the RMAC statistics for kills per set (3.32) sixth for total points per set (3.80).  They went 5-21 overall and 2-16 in RMAC play that year, the first under new second-year head coach Karrin Moore.  The Griffins were picked 14^th in the RMAC's Preseason Coaches' Poll and named Green, junior Lydia Miller and Utah Valley University transfer Bri Mortensen as their Players to Watch.
 
Green is approaching the 1,000 career milestone and will enter the weekend with 984.
 
Series Histories
 
The Mavericks have not faced the Nighthawks, at least since the start of 1992, when exact schedule history is available.
 
The Mavericks have dominated the series with Westminster winning nine straight matches and 11 out of 12 dating back to 2010.  The Griffons lone victory in the series came on Sept. 22, 2015 in Salt Lake City in what was their first season as members of the RMAC.
 
Eight of CMU's nine victories since then have been in straight sets, including on Oct. 25, 2019, when the Mavericks posted a 25-22, 25-20, 25-16 win in the Griffons' Behnken Field House.
 
Up Next
 
After Saturday's non-conference affairs, the Mavericks are slated to return to conference play with a 3-team pod at Chadron State on Feb. 6.  Before playing the Eagles at 5 p.m. that Saturday, they will have a 2 p.m. re-match with CSU Pueblo.
 
The Mavericks then return home for Feb. 11 home matches.