SPEARFISH, S.D.— The Colorado Mesa University Maverick volleyball team registered a season-high 12 service aces and out-hit host Black Hills State University by more than 300 points en-route to a dominating 25-16, 25-9, 25-12 road win over the Yellow Jackets on Friday evening here at the Donald E. Young Center.
The nation's 19
th-ranked Mavericks won their fourth straight match overall and improved to 12-4 overall and to 7-2 in Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference play as they hit .368 as a team while holding the Jackets (2-15, 1-8 RMAC) to a .056 clip.
The Mavs' 12 aces were the most they have recorded in a single match since 2015.
Reigning Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference Setter of the Week
Sabrina VanDeList recorded five of those aces after a pair of 4-ace matches last week. VanDeList also tallied 27 assists and nine digs as she orchestrated the Maverick attack while surpassing the 500-career dig milestone.
Right side
Erin Curl led the offense with a match-high 11 kills on a.435 hitting.
Meanwhile, middle
Tye Wedhorn put down nine kills without an error and hit an incredible .818.
Outside hitter
Sydney Leffler also had seven kills while middle
Savannah Spitzer and outside
Sierra Hunt both chipped in five.
In total, the Mavs had 40 kills, nearly twice as many as the Jackets' 21.
Libero
Kerstin Layman finished with a match-high 15 digs, one more than her counterpart Haedyn Rhoads, who leads the RMAC in digs per set ahead of Layman.
Defensive specialist
Allison Waller also had three aces for the Mavs while Layman had two.
The Mavs never trailed in any of the three sets and the only tie was at 1-1 in the second.
CMU hit .189 in the opening set, committing five of their eight hitting errors, but cleaned that up in the second and third committing just three combined errors while putting down 28 kills on 50 swings in the final two. They hit .600 in the second frame and .433 in the third.
Meanwhile, the Yellow Jackets were held to a negative .040 mark in the second and to a zero hitting percentage in the third.
In the first, the Mavericks led 15-12 before a 4-0 run with Curl at the service line that featured back-to-back Leffler kills allowed the Mavs to go up 19-12.
Later, a BHSU service error and two VanDeList aces around a Wedhorn kill finished the set.
The Mavs then used a 9-1 run to build a commanding 14-5 lead in the second set. The then continued the pressure and ended up scoring 20 of the final 25 points of the set.
The third set was just as dominant as the Mavs jumped out to a 6-0 lead thanks to kills by Hunt, Curl and Wedhorn and extended the lead to 15-3 on back-to-back Spitzer kills en-route to the lop-sided margin.
Now enjoying their longest winning streak of the season, the Mavs will wrap up their weekend in South Dakota when they play in Rapid City against South Dakota Mines at 3 p.m. on Saturday. The Hardrockers improved to 6-11 overall and to 3-6 in the RMAC with their second straight win, a 3-set home sweep over Westminster on Friday evening.
