GOLDEN, Colo.— Call them the comeback kids! Call them history makers! Call them the champions!
After scoring final five points of Saturday's match at Western Colorado University to earn the right to play for it, the Colorado Mesa University Volleyball team did one better recording the final six points of the third set as they came from 24-20 down to win 26-24 to complete a 3-set sweep (25-19, 25-23, 26-24) of the nation's 13
th-ranked Colorado School of Mines on Monday while clinching the 2021 spring season Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference Championship on Friday evening here in the Orediggers' Lockridge Arena.
The nation's second-ranked Mavericks, playing their final regular season match of the campaign, are now 14-0 overall and 11-0 in conference affairs as they became the first RMAC team to ever complete the entire regular season, all be it a shorter one than normal, unscathed. They and top-ranked Lewis are the only two 14-0 and undefeated teams in all of NCAA Division II.
The regular season title is CMU's first since 2014, when they shared it with Mines after going 17-1 in conference play and 29-4 overall, and is the 11th program-history.
The Mavericks will now host the 8-team RMAC Tournament beginning on Thursday, Apr. 8. The official bracket and match times will be announced by the conference later this week.
In Saturday's win over Western, the Mavericks trailed 14-11 in the decisive fifth set and fought off three match points while winning that set 16-14 and the match, 3-2. That victory kept the Mavs in control of their own title-winning destiny.
Although the Mavs would have had fourth and fifth sets to fall back to on Monday if they were not able to compete the third-set comeback, the Mavericks did not bother as
Ashton Reese,
Savannah Spitzer and
Holly Schmidt all had kills while Reese and Spitzer blocked CSM's Lindsey Jin in between two other hitting errors by Taylor Hicken.
Maddi Foutz served each of the final five points and finished the match with 13 kills on .310 hitting. Spitzer, named as the RMAC Offensive Player of the Week earlier in the day after her career-high 18 kill effort at Western, also had 13 kills on an impressive .571 hitting. She also had three blocks.
Freshman setter
Sabrina VanDeList, who helped catapult the Mavericks into a come-from-behind 25-23 second win with three consecutive service aces, also had another good evening with 23 assists. She was also named as the RMAC Setter of the Week for the second straight time on Monday.
Defensively, junior libero
Kerstin Layman had a match-high 19 digs.
The Mavericks hit .305 as a team, 101 points better than the Orediggers, as Reese (7),
Maranda Theleus (6) and
Sierra Hunt (6) all had strong support efforts as they combined for 19 kills. Schmidt, who only played in the third set, also had four kills on just five swings to provide a needed spark, coming in after the Mavericks had fallen behind 7-4 in the third set.
Down by four (11-7) later in the set, the Mavericks scored four straight points on a kill by Foutz and two by Spitzer followed by a setting error but again found themselves down 21-16 as the Orediggers seized apparent control.
The hosts then went up 24-20 on a block before Reese started the title-winning comeback.
Foutz had five kills in the second set while Spitzer joined Schmidt with four, doing so on just six swings.
In the second set, Spitzer finished with six kills while Layman had eight digs. That set was tied on a dozen separate occasions including at 17 before the Orediggers went up 19-17.
Haley Hahn the cut the gap to 19-18 before Hicken, the RMAC's second-leading hitter in terms of kills per set coming in, and Spitzer exchanged blows. Hicken, who along with Julia Eiken finished with 11 kills each for Mines, then misfired as the Orediggers called timeout with the score tied at 20.
VanDeList then went on her serving spree quickly giving the Mavericks a 23-20 lead before her time at the service line ended with an error. However, Foutz and Spitzer put down kills book-ending a Oredigger block as the Mavericks won the frame to take a 2-0 lead.
The first set had been a little more straight forward as the Mavericks used a 5-0 run with kills by Foutz, Reese and
Sierra Hunt to take a 15-10 lead. Leading 20-16 later in the frame, the Mavericks used another 3-0 run triggered by a Spitzer kill to go up 23-16 en-route to the opening set triumph.
