GUNNISON, Colo.— In March, college basketball teams are thrilled anytime they can "survive and advance".
 
That is exactly what the nation's second-ranked Colorado Mesa University Indoor Volleyball team will be feeling while also breathing a huge sigh of relief on Saturday afternoon after fighting off three match points and scoring the final five points in a thrilling 16-14 fifth-set victory at upset-minded Western Colorado University in the Mountaineers' Paul Wright Gymnasium.
 
The Mavericks, who had given up 1-0 and 2-1 overall set leads earlier in the match, trailed 14-11 in the fifth before two Savannah Spitzer kills and three Mountaineer hitting errors, including one forced by a Spitzer and Ashton Reese block, allowed the Mavericks to remain undefeated while taking one more big step towards a potential Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference regular season title, something they can clinch if they are able to defeat 13^th-ranked Colorado School of Mines (8-3) on Monday at 5 p.m. in Golden.
 
Spitzer finished with a career-high 18 kills and hit .500 with just two errors on 32 swings.  She and Reese also set new career-high totals as each finished with seven blocks as the Mavericks improved to 13-0 overall and to 10-0 in the RMAC with the 25-18, 24-26, 25-17, 19-25, 16-14 victory.
 
WCU, fighting for a spot in the Apr. 8-10 RMAC Tournament, fell to 5-7 overall and to 5-7 in the conference as seniors Hannah Hendrickson and Lyria Brook played their final home match.
 
Maverick outside hitters Sierra Hunt and Holly Schmidt also finished in double figures for kills.  Hunt, a freshman, had 12 to match a career-high and recorded a career-high 15 digs to tally her first collegiate double-double.  Schmidt finished with 11 kills and fie digs while hitting .320.
 
Maddi Foutz, Reese and Maranda Theleus all finished with nine kills as well.  Reese hit .500 while Theleus swung at a .375 clip.
 
Defensively, junior libero Kerstin Layman tallied a career-high 35 digs, the most of any Maverick in a single match since Taylor Woods tallied 38 on Halloween in 2015.  Layman also had 12 assists to record her first career double-double
 
Freshman setter Sabrina VanDeList also had a career day, tallying a career-high 36 assists to go along with 13 digs, good for hers sixth double-double of the year.
 
The Mavericks hit an impressive .436 and .441 in their relatively comfortable first and third set wins and finished the match hitting .284.  WCU was held to a .203 clip. 
 
The Mavericks had a 9-7 edge in total blocks and put down 76 kills, 17 more than the Mountaineers.  However, CMU managed just one service ace while the Mountaineers tallied five while committing just seven service errors.
 
The Mavs also had a big 93-71 advantage in total digs as Layman had more than twice as many as her Mountaineer counterpart Elizabeth Rupprecht, who finished with a team-high 17.
 
WCU's Savanna Meyer had a strong match in the middle, putting down 17 kills while hitting .593.  She also had four blocks to pace the Mountaineers at the net.
 
In the opening set, the Mavericks used a 6-0 run with VanDeList at the service line to break a 17-17 deadlock while surging into a 23-17 lead.  After a service error ended the rally, Spitzer and Theleus then finished off the set with kills from VanDeList assists.
 
The Mavericks would go on to trail the second set 17-13 but rallied to tie at 21 on back-to-back Mountaineer hitting errors and a Hunt kill.  They then went up 22-21 on a Spitzer kill.
 
Moments later, the Mavericks took a 24-23 lead on another Hunt kill but could not close out the set as the Mountaineers would go on to even the match at a set apiece on kills by Kaia Ghosh, Hendrickson and Meyer.
 
The third set was tied ten separate times in the early going before a 7-0 Maverick run with VanDeList behind the service line gave the Mavericks a 22-15 lead.  Reese was especially impressive in that stretch recording three of her kills while teaming with Spitzer for two blocks.
 
Going on to win the third set by eight points, the Mavericks looked to close out the match in the fourth and jumped out to an early 6-3 lead before the Mountaineers rallied to build 13-11 and 19-14 leads en-route to the fourth set win, which forced the Mavericks to a fifth set for just the second time this season.
 
Losing a fourth set for the first time in the Mavericks quickly found themselves down 3-1 in the fifth.  They would tie the set at 3 but later found themselves down 8-5 and then 12-7.
 
After calling timeout, Schmidt put down a kill before another Reese and Spitzer blocked made it a 12-9 ball-game forcing the Mountaineers into a timeout.
 
The Mavericks then closed the gap to 12-11 before a service error and Elizabeth Koch kill gave the Mountaineers a series of three match points at 14-11.
 
Spitzer then took over, putting down her 17^th kill to fend off the first.  She and Reese then blocked Emily Mangone to fight off the second.
 
After a WCU timeout and a Mountaineer hitting error which tied the set at 14, Spitzer put down another kill to give the Mavericks a match point, which they would successfully convert when Mangone committed another hitting error to give the Mavericks the comeback victory.
 
The Mavs have now won 15 straight matches over the Mountaineers since 2013.  Saturday's affair was the first 5-setter in that span.