TAVARES, Fla.— Colorado Mesa University's Savannah Ott and Hailey Peters advanced to the Gold Division bracket final and finished second amongst 24 teams at the AVCA Small College Beach Volleyball Pairs Challenge tournament on Saturday at Hickory Point Beach.
 
A late addition to the tournament, Ott and Peters went 3-0 on Friday and then claimed quarterfinal and semifinal wins on Saturday before falling to Texas A&M-Kingsville's Christina Garagasin and Shelby Tate in the final.  That same Javelina pair had knocked out CMU's Mary McGinnis and Rianne Brown in the quarterfinals.
 
Meanwhile, the Mavericks fell in a pair of team duals on the middle day of the tournament, dropping a 3-0 decision to top-seeded Tampa in the Pool A decider before falling 4-1 to Palm Beach Atlantic, the third seed amongst the 12 teams in the tournament, in a challenge round match.
 
However, the Mavericks still have a chance to win the title as they finished second in Pool A to earn a spot in the 6-team Gold Bracket for Sunday.  The Mavericks will have a tough road and will face the Javelinas in the quarterfinals at 9 a.m. EDT (7 a.m. Mountain).  The winner will take on Tampa in the semifinals.
 
On the other half of the bracket, Palm Beach Atlantic will face St. Leo in the quarterfinals with the winner talking on Spring Hill, which along with Tampa, received byes to the semifinals.
 
In the Pairs Challenge event, Ott and Peters were 21-10, 21-16 winners of Hendrix's Morgan Ford and Isabella Eurgil in the quarterfinals.  They then squeaked out a 21-18, 11-21, 15-13 win over Spring Hill duo Patty Blood and Jane Becker before dropping a pair of 21-16 sets to Gragasin and Tate, who had defeated McGinnis and Brown, 21-12, 21-14 earlier in the day.
 
In the team duals, the Mavericks (5-12) dropped the three completed matches to Tampa while two other matches were called off early as the teams tried to make up for lost time due to a lightning delay, playing that dual to clinch.  That victory gave the Spartans the Pool A title as the Mavericks finished second in the 4-team group.
 
In the challenge round match against the Sailfish (16-6), the Mavericks received a No. 4 win from Ashton Reese and Sabrina VanDeList as the teams split the No. 4 and 5 matches, which both went to three sets.  Reese and VanDeList who are 3-1 thus far on the weekend, defeated Jessica Nodell and Sydney Wagner, by a 9-21, 22-20, 15-8 margin.
 
At No. 5, CMU's Ara Norwood and Tye Wedhorn lost the opening set, 22-20, but rallied for a 21-19 second-set win.   However, the Maverick duo dropped the third set, 15-6 as they saw their 3-match winning streak come to an end.
 
The Sailfish had clinched the dual earlier with straight-set wins in the top three flights.