DENVER— The Colorado Mesa University volleyball team dropped a 5-set back-and-forth affair to the nation's tenth-ranked Colorado School of Mines in Friday's Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference Tournament semifinals here at the downtown Auraria Event Center.
 
The tournament's second-seeded Orediggers won the odd-numbered sets while the third-seeded Mavericks came from a set down on two separate occasions, only to be-outlasted in the decider, 15-9.
 
Mines won their eighth straight RMAC Tournament match and booked a chance at winning their third straight tournament title on Saturday night, while improving to 25-3 overall with the 25-11, 17-25, 25-18, 22-25, 15-9 win.  The Orediggers will play tournament host and No. 1 seed MSU Denver in Saturday's championship match, after the Roadrunners won the second semifinal in four sets over No. 5 seed CSU Pueblo.
 
The Mavericks slipped to 21-6 overall, but have won 12 of their last 14 matches.  The only two defeats in that stretch are to Mines, which jumped out to a 11-1 fifth-set lead on Friday before the Mavericks made a valiant comeback, which proved to be too little, too late.
 
However, CMU is likely to receive an at-large selection into what would be their ninth NCAA Division II Tournament in program history when the official selections are announced on Monday at 5:30 p.m. via a broadcast on NCAA.com.  The Mavericks were ranked fourth in this week's NCAA Division II South Central Regional Rankings.  Eight teams, including the RMAC and Lone Star Conference Tournament winners will receive berths.
 
Mines was ranked second.
 
Four of the LSC teams ranked in the top ten of the regional rankings have already been eliminated as have both of the RMAC teams ranked below the Mavericks as of Wednesday.
 
On Friday, Maverick outside hitter Sydney Leffler, who received her RMAC Freshman of the Year plaque before the match, led the squad with 15 kills, ten of which came in the second and fourth set wins.
 
Defensively, Kerstin Layman, recognized as the RMAC Defensive Player of the Year, tallied 25 digs, just one shy of her season-high.  Setter Sabrina VanDeList, who joined Leffler on the First Team All-RMAC squad, also tallied her tenth double-double of the season and her third in the last four matches, with 43 assists and 11 digs. 
 
Libby Borgerding also had a career-high 12 digs while Holly Schmidt put down nine kills.  Savannah Spitzer and Maranda Theleus, who hit .500, also had each apiece.
 
Mines was led by 20 kills from Rose Stuewe and 20 digs from Elle Duis.  Setter Drew Stokes also had 55 assists as three other Orediggers finished in double-figures for kills.
 
CSM hit .464 in the opening frame before the Mavericks turned the tables in the second, hitting an even stronger .484 building as much as a 6-0point lead before back-to-back kills from Theleus on Layman assists evened the match.
 
The Orediggers then took the third set, out-hitting the Mavericks .382-.146.
 
However, CMU roared back once again using a 7-1 run to break open a tight third set.  Leading 16-9 after kills from Leffler and Caroline Pung, the Mavericks were then threatened once again as the Orediggers pulled to within 22-21 after an unsuccessful CMU video replay challenge.
 
However, Spitzer and Leffler then put down kills to help the Mavericks close out the set to force a fifth.
 
The Orediggers then scored the first five points of the decisive fifth frame and after a kill from Sierra Hunt, scored six more straight points to go up 11-1.
 
The Mavs then made it interesting by scoring six of the next seven points before Mines finished the match on kills by Lindsey Jin and Taylor Hicken around an Oredigger service error.
 
The Orediggers, who ranked just 13^th out of 15 conference teams in blocking coming into, recorded 12 blocks in the match.  CMU was held to just four and was also guilty of 18 other unforced errors.