GRAND JUNCTION, Colo.— The Colorado Mesa University volleyball team saw what was their best-ever season, at least by winning percentage, come to a close on Friday night as the fourth-seeded Colorado School of Mines Orediggers bounced the top-seeded Mavericks from the Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference Tournament in Friday's semifinal round here in Brownson Arena.
 
The Mavericks, who were the top seed and undefeated coming in, saw their 2021 Spring season come to an end with a 15-1 record as the Orediggers claimed a 25-13, 25-20, 25-17 victory to improve to 10-4 while advancing to Saturday's championship match at 6 p.m. against No. 2 seed MSU Denver, which swept No. 3 seed CSU Pueblo in Friday's first semifinal match.
 
The Roadrunners (15-1), ranked third nationally one spot behind the Mavericks in this week's AVCA Division II Coaches' Top 25 Poll, advanced to the championship match for the fifth straight time.  Mines is ranked 15^th nationally while CSU Pueblo, which fell to 11-4, was ranked 25^th.
 
In Friday's win, the Orediggers recorded 10 blocks and held the Mavericks to a season-low .067 hitting percentage never allowing the Mavericks to gain much momentum.
 
In the process, they avenged CMU's regular-season win in Golden just 11 days prior, which allowed the Mavericks to clinch the RMAC Regular Season title, CMU's first since 2014, when the two rivals had shared the regular season title.
 
That year's Maverick squad went on to win the RMAC Tournament title over MSU Denver before advancing to the Sweet 16 of the NCAA Division II Tournament while finishing the year with a 29-4 record.  That CMU squad posted an .879 winning percentage, which was the best in program history until this 2021 spring team surpassed it with .938 mark.
 
On Friday, the Mavericks were also called for seven blocking errors and were guilty of six serving errors throughout the match.
 
Mines was led by 11 kills on .429 hitting from Rose Stuewe and 10 more kills from Taylor Hicken, who hit .556.  Setter Drew Stokes tallied 35 assists and a team-high nine digs.
 
The Mavs were paced by nine kills from sophomore right side hitter Maranda Theleus, who also hit .300.  Defensively, junior libero Kerstin Layman tallied 13 digs.  Haley Hahn also added six kills and hit .385 from the middle.
 
The Orediggers hit .306 on the night including at a blistering .485 clip in the opening set.
 
The second set was the closest and was tied on eight separate occasions including at 15 before Theleus gave the Mavs their first lead with a kill to force Mines into a timeout, down 16-15.
 
However, Stuewe registered two kills and a block in the next four points after a Maverick service error gave the momentum right back to Mines, which ended up winning the set by five points on a Hicken kill.
 
The Mavericks then fell behind 4-1 and later trailed 10-7 before another 3-0 Oredigger run gave the visitors a 13-7 lead.
 
Savannah Spitzer then put down a kill to cut the gap to five.  However, the Mavs would get no closer as the Orediggers cruised to the 10-point third set win and the 3-set sweep.