DENVER— Back-up pin hitters Maranda Theleus and Brooklyn Leggett, who filled in for injured All-Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference selections Erin Curl and Sierra Hunt, respectively, were amongst five Colorado Mesa University volleyball players in double-figures for kills as the fifth-seeded Mavericks out-lasted No. 4 seed Dallas Baptist University to claim a 5-set win over the Patriots in the opening round of the NCAA Division II Tournament on Thursday night here in the Auraria Event Center.
 
The nation's 18^th-ranked Mavericks picked an opportune time to claim their first 5-set win of the season and claimed their eighth NCAA tournament win in program history while improving to 6-4 in first round matches.
 
The Mavs' 25-27, 25-15, 25-20, 21-25, 15-11 back-and-forth victory, their first NCAA tourney win since 2018, also set up a Friday night semifinal match with South Central Regional host MSU Denver, ranked No. 1 in the nation.
 
CMU is now 22-6 overall.  MSU Denver is 29-1 and has won 23 consecutive matches after sweeping No. 8 seed CSU Pueblo earlier in the evening.  Two of those wins have come over the Mavericks during Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference regular season play.
 
DBU, which was making its first NCAA Tournament since 2013, finishes the season with a 25-7 overall record and a school-record for wins.
 
Theleus, in her fourth season as a Mav, was making her first start and just fourth appearance of the season on the right side and finished with a season-high 12 kills.  Leggett, in for the First Team All-RMAC selection Hunt on the left side, finished with a career-high 11 kills in what was just her fourth start of her redshirt freshman campaign.
 
Meanwhile, Sydney Leffler's CMU's other outside hitter, led the Mavericks with 14 kills while middle blockers Tye Wedhorn and Savannah Spitzer tallied ten apiece.
 
Setter Sabrina VanDeList distributed the wealth evenly, recording 54 assists while coming up with 14 digs to register her eighth double-double of the campaign.

Defensively, Kerstin Layman had a monster 24-dig night and moved into the No. 4 spot on CMU's career digs chart ahead of Ashley Loftsgard.  Layman now has 1,597 career digs, including a career-high 494 this season.
 
Spitzer also added four blocks while Leggett, VanDeList, Wedhorn and Leggett were all involved in three, helping the Mavs to a 10-7 advantage at the net.
 
Elsewhere, Jordan Woods had three of the Mavs' nine service aces.  The Mavs were guilty of just three service errors while DBU managed just three aces while committing eight errors from the service line.
 
The Patriots' AJ Koele finished with 18 kills, nine of which were in the opening set.  Emily Van Slate also a fine 12-kill, 18-dig double-double while setter Lauryn Burt had 58 assists and nine digs but was held to just one kill on eight attempts after coming into the match with more than 100 kills.
 
The Mavs hit .191 as a team in the victory and held the Patriots to a .165 clip although DBU did finish with a slight 63-60 advantage in total kills.  Both teams finished with 78 digs.
 
After being unable to stop Koele in the opening set, the Mavericks held the 6-foot-1 pin hitter to just one kill in the second and evened the match with a convincing 10-point second-set win.
 
CMU then overcame a 12-8 third set deficit by scoring four of the next five points to close to within 13-12 before eventually going to take a 17-15 lead. 
 
They then held a 21-19 advantage before closing out the set on a 4-1 run and a Theleus kill to go ahead two sets to one.
 
The Patriots then controlled much of the fourth set and built a 24-15 lead before the Mavericks rattled off six straight points to gain some momentum heading into the decisive fifth.

The Mavs jumped out to a 3-0 lead and then took advantage of a successful challenge to go ahead 8-3 on an Allison Waller service ace.
 
However, the Patriots rallied to within 9-8 before a Theleus kill allowed the Mavericks to regain a 2-point cushion at 10-8.
 
After a Koele kill, Leggett rejected the Patriot redshirt senior who had transferred from Baylor, to give the Mavs a 11-9 lead.
 
A Woods ace and Patriot hitting error then extended the Mavs lead to 13-10 before Leffler put down two kills in the final three rallies of the match to close out CMU's victory, their eighth in as many matches against the Patriots.