DENVER— The Colorado Mesa University volleyball team had the No. 1 team in the nation on the ropes, winning the first two sets and leading the fourth, 18-14, but could not close out the host MSU Denver Roadrunners, who came from behind to claim a reverse sweep 5-set victory in the semifinal round of the NCAA Division II South Central Regional Tournament on Friday here in the Auraria Event Center.
 
The top-seeded Roadrunners hit .394 as a team throughout the night and improved to 30-1 overall with their 24th straight victory while the nation's 18^th-ranked Mavericks, seeded fifth in the tournament, finished the season with a 22-7 record.  Three of their losses were to the Roadrunners, including two by agonizingly small margins.  All seven losses were to nationally-ranked teams and four were in five sets after the Mavs had 2-1 overall leads in each.
 
MSU Denver will now advance to the regional final on Saturday at 6 p.m., where they will face the nation's ninth-ranked and region No. 2 seed West Texas A&M Lady Buffs, who got by No. 22 (No. 6 seed) Colorado School of Mines in another 5-set battle earlier on Friday evening.  The Lady Buffs are now 29-4 and have won 22 straight matches
 
The Mavericks were able to win the first two sets of Friday night's two-hour and 20-minute match, their second 5-setter in as many nights, by tight 25-22 and 27-25 margins, playing clean volleyball but were rolled in the third, 25-8.
 
The Mavericks regained their footing in the fourth, taking an early lead and building it to as many as six points at 13-7.  They still led by five at 16-11 and four at 18-14 before the Roadrunners went on to score the next four points to tie the set at 18.
 
The two Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference heavyweights, who have combined to win the last three conference regular season titles with unblemished conference marks over the last 19 months, were then tied at 20, 22, 23, 24 and 25 before the Roadrunners finally claimed the fourth set with a kill by Rylee Hladky and a Maverick hitting error to even the match at two sets apiece.
 
The Mavs then scored the opening point of the fifth set to gain their only lead of the final set before the Roadrunners seized control with another 4-0 run.
 
The Mavs then pulled to within 4-2 on a Sydney Leffler kill, one of her team-high 18, but would trail by three or more points the rest of the way as the Roadrunners scored the final three points of the match in quick succession, to take the fifth set, 15-9.
 
The Roadrunners statistically dominated the night and finished with 82 kills, 22 more than the Mavs.  Hladky, the RMAC and D2CCA South Central Region Player of the Year, proved why finishing with 22 kills and 16 digs while hitting 357.  Meanwhile, Riley Anderson had a career-high 21 kills on .487 hitting while Kaylee Corsentino chipped in 15 more.
 
Leffler led the Mavs offensively from the outside hitter position but received plenty of support from right side Maranda Theleus and the Mavs' two middles— Savannah Spitzer and Tye Wedhorn.  Theleus, making her second successive regional tournament start, after playing in just three matches during the regular season, put down ten kills and hit .308.  She had been over .500.
 
Meanwhile, Spitzer had 13 kills while Wedhorn, playing in her final career match, finished with 12.
 
Spitzer, a redshirt junior, finished the season atop the RMAC for hitting percentage at .389 while Wedhorn is now ranked fourth at .346.
 
Theleus, a 4-year Maverick does have a year of eligibility left thanks to the blanket COVID eligibility waiver but has stated that she does not plan to return after graduating this year.
 
Another stellar Maverick in 2-time RMAC Defensive Player of the Year Kerstin Layman also saw her career come to a close in heart-breaking fashion.  However, the fifth-year Maverick redshirt senior from Littleton in suburban Denver, went on a strong note recording 20 digs for her third successive 20-plus effort in the post-season.  She tallied 1,617 career digs, fourth most in CMU history.  She had 514 of those this year, currently the most in the RMAC.
 
Maddi Foutz, a 6-year collegiate player, also played her final career match in a defensive specialist role, registering seven digs and a pair of service aces off the bench.
 
Meanwhile, redshirt sophomore setter Sabrina VanDeList had yet another solid night, finishing with 47 assists and eight digs while leading the Mavs to a respectable .220 team hitting percentage.  She leads the RMAC with 51 service aces, the second highest single-season total in the CMU history during the rally-scoring era (2001-Present).  She also tallied 1,156 assists this year, the most of any Maverick setter in eight years.
 
In Friday's match, both teams finished with five blocks while the Mavs had a slight 6-5 advantage in aces.
 
However, the Roadrunners were guilty of 15 service errors, including 11 in the first two sets while allowing the Mavericks to take the early lead.  CMU committed just four service errors all night.
 
CMU also hit an impressive .433 in the opening set and at a .278 clip in the second but could not slow the Roadrunners enough as the hosts hit .350 or higher in all five sets.
 
The Mavs were attempting to reach the regional final for the third time and for the first since 2014 in what was their tenth total NCAA Tournament appearance.  They are a combined 8-10 in those.
 
They had also dropped a Sept. 23 heartbreaker to then fourth-ranked MSU Denver in Grand Junction, losing all three sets by just two points, including two that went into extra points.