DENVER— After claiming their first NCAA Tournament win since 2018 and their eighth in program history, the nation's 18^th-ranked and fifth seeded Colorado Mesa University volleyball team will continue their tournament run and season on Friday when the Mavs get a third crack at the nation's top-ranked team in MSU Denver.
 
The Mavericks, now 21-6 overall, will take on the South Central Regional hosts and No. 1 seeded Roadrunners (29-1) at 7:30 p.m. in the evening's second semifinal.
 
No. 2 seed and national poll No. 9 West Texas A&M will play No. 6 seed and national poll No. 22 Colorado School of Mines in the first semifinal at 5 p.m. 

Saturday's championship match will commence at 6 p.m. on Saturday and will send the winner to the final three rounds of the 64-team NCAA Division II Tournament, which will held from Dec. 1-3 in Seattle as part of the NCAA Division II Fall Sports Championship Festival.

A live stream for the entire regional tournament can be found on the RMAC Network.  Live statistics can be accessed here and tickets and all-tournament passes can be purchased through the tournament information page, which will also include links to post-match press conferences.  Parking information, including a free parking code, can also be accessed through that page.

Last Time Out
 
The Mavericks claimed their first 5-set win of the season behind a balanced attack on Thursday night taking down fourth-seeded Dallas Baptist University in the fourth and final quarterfinal of an exciting day of South Central Regional Tournament action.  Five different Mavericks finished in double figures for kills.
 
To read the complete recap, which now includes a highlight video package, please click here.

The post-match press conference with Head Coach Dave Fleming, Leggett and Theleus can be viewed here.
 
Next Woman Up
 
Normal reserves Maranda Theleus and Brooklyn Leggett stepped up in a big way in Thursday night's win, filling in for a pair of injured All-Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference selections.  Theleus was making her first start and just her fourth appearance of the season on the right side in place of Honorable Mention All-RMAC pick Erin Curl, who was injured during the final regular season match of the year against Regis.  She finished with 12 kills.
 
Meanwhile, Leggett, who had started the last two matches on the right side, moved to the left in place of First Team All-RMAC pick Sierra Hunt, who was injured in the Mavs' RMAC Tournament semifinal, which was also against Regis.  Leggett, a redshirt freshman who was in the starting lineup for just the fourth time this season, recorded 11 kills in Thursday's NCAA Tournament win.
 
Their Second Home
 
The Mavs are spending their third consecutive weekend in Colorado's capitol city.  The Mavs closed out the regular season on Nov. 5, playing at Regis.  The Rangers won that match in five sets and also ended the Mavs' run in the RMAC Tournament last Friday, taking a 4-set victory at the Auraria Event Center.
 
The Mavs did win their RMAC Tournament quarterfinal over Colorado Christian last Thursday.
 
CMU also played in Denver at the Auraria Event Center back on Sept. 8, when they dropped their RMAC-opener to MSU Denver in three sets.
 
Tenth Appearance
 
The Mavericks are in the midst of their tenth NCAA Tournament appearance.  Following Thursday night's win, the Mavs are now 8-9 record in NCAA Tournament play and will be looking to reach the regional final for the third time after doing so in both 2006 and 2014.
 
The Mavs are now 6-4 in the first round.
 
Friday's match will be the third that the Mavs have played against MSU Denver in the NCAA Tournament.  The two teams have split the previous two, both of which went to five sets, with the Mavs defeating the Roadrunners in five sets at the 2006 Central Regional Tournament in Canyon, Texas.  MSU Denver then won in 2016 in the opening round of the South Central Regional played in San Angelo, Texas that year.
 
Results from all of CMU's NCAA Tournament appearances, nine of which have been in 18^th-year Head Coach Dave Fleming's tenure, which began in 2005, are listed below.

2004 (0-1): L, Eastern New Mexico (2-3)
2005 (1-1): W, Western New Mexico (3-0) & L, Nebraska-Kearney (0-3)
2006 (2-1): W, Nebraska-Kearney (3-2); W, MSU Denver (3-2) & L, West Texas A&M (2-3)
2007 (0-1): L, Nebraska-Kearney (0-3)
2014 (2-1): W, Angelo State (3-0), W, West Texas A&M (3-1) & L, Arkansas-Fort Smith (1-3)
2015 (1-1): W, Tarleton State (3-2) & L, Arkansas-Fort Smith (2-3)
2016 (0-1): L, MSU Denver (2-3)
2018 (1-1): W, Dixie State (3-0) & L, Texas A&M-Commerce (L, 2-3)
2021 (0-1): L; UT-Tyler (1-3)
2022 (1-0): W, Dallas Baptist (3-2)
 
Five to stay alive
 
As mentioned earlier, the Mavericks had five different players reach double figures for kills in Thursday's regional win to keep their season alive, a testament to the balanced attack that has been the calling card of the Mavs throughout the season.  Sydney Leffler led the Mavs with 14 kills while the aforementioned Maranda Theleus and Brooklyn Leggett contributed a combined 23.  Meanwhile, middle blockers Savannah Spitzer and Tye Wedhorn finished with ten kills each.
 
The Mavs have not had five players reach double figures in a single match this year but had had four players record ten or more kills in three earlier encounters.
 
Five different Mavericks have also recorded more than 200 kills this season.  Leffler took over the lead on Thursday and will almost certainly win the team killing race for the second straight season.  She now has put down 310 this year after finishing with 340 a year ago.
 
Sierra Hunt has 309 while Savannah Spitzer is third on the team with 225.  Tye Wedhorn and Erin Curl both have 220 to their credit.
 
In the Polls
 
The Mavericks are sitting 18^th in this week's American Volleyball Coaches Association (AVCA) NCAA Division II Top 25 Coaches' Poll, down one spot from last week's No. 17 ranking.
 
CMU, which was ranked a season-best 15^th the week prior (Oct. 31), has now been ranked in the top 20 for seven straight weeks and in the top 25 for all 12 regular season polls since Aug. 29 after starting out in the "others receiving votes" category of the preseason poll.
 
The Mavs received 361 points in this week's polling of 47 AVCA member coaches from around the country.
 
RMAC rival and now regional tournament opponent MSU Denver is ranked No. 1 for the fourth straight week and picked up 44 of the 47 first place votes to top the poll with 1,172 total points.  Wayne State (Neb.) remained second with two first place votes and 1,065 points while Concordia-St. Paul remained third with 1,039. 
 
Alaska Anchorage moved up a spot to fourth with 988 points and is receiving the other first place vote, but saw their season come to an end in a 1 versus 8 seed shocker to Chaminade in the opening round of the West Regional on Thursday.
 
Tampa also moved up a spot to fifth while three other Northern Sun Intercollegiate Conference teams in Minnesota Duluth (6^th), St. Cloud State (7^th) and Southwest Minnesota State (10^th) are all ranked in the top 10.  Western Washington is now ninth while West Texas A&M is now ranked ninth, up two spots from last week.
 
Southwest Minnesota State was left out of the NCAA Tournament field in the brutally tough Central Region, which includes eight of the top 15 teams in the poll.
 
CMU's only six losses this season have come to ranked teams in MSU Denver (twice), Tampa, Southwest Minnesota State and Regis (twice), which continues to sit 14^th.
 
The Mavericks are still of four RMAC teams in the top 25 as the Colorado School of Mines remained in the No. 22 spot.
 
Six of the teams in this week's South Central regional are ranked or receiving votes, which was the case for Dallas Baptist.
 
All-Region
 
Two Mavericks in first team selection Savannah Spitzer and second team honoree Kerstin Layman were named to the D2CCA (Division 2 Conference Commissioners Association) all-region teams that were announced on Thursday morning just before the start of the regional.

The 7-player unites were selected by position via a nomination and voting process of sports information directors throughout the region, made up of the Lone Star and Rocky Mountain Athletic Conferences.
 
Spitzer is a first time all-region selection while Layman had earned a first team honor last season. 
 
All-Tournament Team
 
Spitzer had also been named to the RMAC All-Tournament team, which was announced last Saturday.
 
Spitzer recorded 25 kills (3.57/set) while hitting a combined .548 in the Mavs' two RMAC Tournament matches.  She also had three service aces and three blocks during the tournament, recording 29.5 total points to co-lead the team.
 
Spitzer had 15 kills, three aces and two blocks while hitting .609 against Regis in the semifinals on Friday.  She had recorded ten kills and hit .474 in Thursday's 3-0 quarterfinal round sweep of Colorado Christian.
 
Surging into the RMAC lead and nation's top five
 
Hitting .226 with ten kills and three errors on a season-high 31 attempts, Savannah Spitzer is now hitting .399 this season to rank seventh in the country. She had entered the NCAA Tournament with a hitting percentage of .411, which ranked her fourth in the nation coming into the tournament.
 
Still flirting with .400, Spitzer continues to lead the RMAC and would become just the second Maverick (with 200 or more attempts) to ever do so joining Maverick All-American and Regional Player of the Year Kasie Gilfert is the only former Maverick hitter (with 200 or more attempts) to have ever surpassed the .400 mark for a complete season, hitting an RMAC record .451 in 2018 before hitting .391 a year later in 2019.
 
Fellow Maverick middle Tye Wedhorn is still ranked third in the RMAC and seventh in the South Central Region with her .351 mark.  She hit at a .292 clip in Thursday's win.
 
For those unfamiliar with attack percentage calculations, they are compiled by taking the total number of kills and subtracting hitting errors and then dividing that number by the number of total attack attempts. 
 
Spitzer has recorded 225 kills and has committed just 46 errors in 449 attempts this season.
 
Record-setting All-Conference haul
 
The Mavericks had a program-record seven players named to the All-RMAC teams, which were announced last week.  The Mavs had three first team selections in redshirt senior libero Kerstin Layman, recognized as the RMAC Defensive Player of the Year for the second straight season, and redshirt sophomores Sierra Hunt and Sabrina VanDeList.
 
VanDeList is now a 3-time First Team honoree while Layman was named to the first team for the initial time in her career, which includes four consecutive overall all-conference recognitions.  Layman had been a second team honoree for the past two seasons after earning honorable mention status in 2019.
 
Hunt was also an honorable mention selection as a true freshman in the spring of 2021.
 
The Mavs also had three second team selections this year in outside hitter Sydney Leffler and middle blockers Savannah Spitzer and Tye Wedhorn.  Right side Erin Curl was an honorable mention pick.
 
Leffler, a true sophomore, was a first team honoree and the RMAC Freshman of the Year last year.  Wedhorn, a fifth-year senior, is now a 3-time second team honoree, having earned the honors in 2018 as a freshman at Fort Lewis, and again last fall for CMU.  Spitzer is also now a 3-time honoree having picked up first team plaudits as a true freshman in 2020-21 before pickup second team honors last year.
 
Curl, a Division I graduate transfer, is in her first year as a Maverick.
 
CMU had three first team and six overall picks in 1991, the spring of 2021 and in 2014, when they won RMAC regular season titles, but had never had seven players honored in the same season until Thursday

Smart Mavs
 
The Mavericks had two first team and ten total selections to the RMAC All-Academic Teams, which were announced last week as well.  That list includes Sabrina VanDeList, named as the RMAC Academic Player of the Year, and fellow First Team selection Tye Wedhorn.

VanDeList was also later named as the RMAC Summit Award Winner for having the highest GPA of any student-athlete competing in the RMAC Tournament and is the first Maverick volleyball player to earn the honor.
 
Libby Borgerding, Maddi Foutz, Sierra Hunt, Hahni Johnson, Kerstin Layman, Sydney Leffler, Brooklyn Leggett and Jordan Woods were all honor roll selections.
 
VanDeList, who is just the second Maverick to receive RMAC Academic Player of the Year honors (Taylor Woods, 2018) has a perfect 4.000 GPA.  Wedhorn completed her bachelor's degree with a 3.929 mark and is now enrolled in graduate work.
 
To be eligible for selection to the elite 10-player first team, student-athletes must have a 3.500 or higher GPA, up from previous year's 3.30 cut-off, be in at least their second year at the nominating institution and have used a season of eligibility.  Sports information directors from the RMAC member institutions nominated and selected the first team based on a combination of athletic and academic accomplishments.
 
Those not selected were automatically placed on the honor roll, which has a minimum GPA requirement of 3.30 or higher.
 
Now No. 4
 
Recording 24 digs in Thursday's win, Maverick Kerstin Layman surged past Ashley Loftsgard and into fourth place on the Mavs' all-time charts for career digs.  Layman now has 1,597 career digs.  Loftsgard had 1,578 in her 2005-08 career.
 
Layman also now ranks second in the Mavs' rally-scoring era (2001-Present) history behind only Taylor Woods, who Layman played alongside as a true freshman in 2018.  Woods finished her 2015-18 career with 2,080 digs.
 
RMAC Hall of Famer Amy Miller (2,542) and Pam Glenn (1,783) are the only other two Mavericks to have more digs than Layman, who now has back-to-back and nine total 20+ dig efforts this season.
 
She has recorded 494 in total this season, the most of any Maverick since Woods had 557 as a senior in 2018.  Layman ranks second in the conference for digs per set (5.04) and is third in the conference for total digs, but well within sight of the top two, whose seasons have come to an end.  Black Hills State's Haedyn Rhoades tallied 501 this season and paces the conference with her 5.16 per set average.
 
Regis' Haley Kennedy finished with 495 in 111 sets, to rank fifth with her 4.46 per set average.
 
Mines' Elle Duis (481) and Ashlyn Cianciulli (453) also are still alive.
 
Double-Double and Historic Setter
 
Maverick setter Sabrina VanDeList recorded her ninth double-double of the season in Thursday's NCAA Tournament, recording 54 assists and 14 digs.  She has now registered 50 or more assists in matches this season.
 
VanDeList is the first Maverick since Mackenzie Edwards to record a double-double in an NCAA Tournament.  Edwards had a mammoth match against MSU Denver in 2015 with 31 digs and 25 kills in the opening round of the 2015 tournament against MSU Denver.

VanDeList is also the first Maverick setter since Allison Krug in 2005 to record more than 50 assists in a single match.  Krug had 52 in a 2005 regional win over Western New Mexico after recording 67 in a 2004 regional loss to Eastern New Mexico, CMU's first ever NCAA Tournament match.  Sets were played to 30 points in those days although Krug's efforts were quite impressive considering the 2005 effort against Western New Mexico was in a 3-set sweep.  Her 2004 effort was in a 5-setter, decided by just two points in the fifth (15-13).

VanDeList has now raised her season total to 1,109 and continues to rank second in the RMAC for assists per set at 11.32, a mark that ranks her fifth nationally.
 
VanDeList also leads the RMAC with 53 service aces and her 0.54 per set average.
 
That total is already the second biggest in CMU's rally-scoring era, trailing only Drew Choules, who had 69 aces in 2005.

Her assist total now ranks her ninth on the CMU's single-season assists chart during the rally-scoring era, and is just 17 shy of her 2021 total.  Jordyn Moody holds the era-record of 1,343 from 2014.
 
20-Win seasons
 
The Mavs' win over Westminster on Nov. 1 was the Mavs' 20^th of the season and allowed them to reach the 20-win mark for the seventh time under the direction of 18^th-year Maverick Head Coach Dave Fleming. 
 
The Mavs now have back-to-back 20-win seasons and are guaranteed of at least equaling last year's mark when the Mavs went 21-7 after going 15-1 in the spring of 2021 during the COVID-shortened and delayed season.
 
The Mavs were also 20-match winners in 2018 (24), 2014 (29), 2013 (21), 2010 (20) and 2005 (23).
 
The RMAC's top boss
 
Now in his 18^th season as the Mavs' head coach, Dave Fleming leads all active RMAC coaches with 343 career victories.  He has a 343-172 mark in his time at CMU, good for a .666 winning percentage in over 500 matches (515). 
 
The success is nothing new for Fleming, who has now led the Mavericks to nine NCAA Division II National Tournament berths, two Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference regular season titles (2014, 2021-Spring), two RMAC Tournament crowns (2014, 2018) and three RMAC West Division crowns (2005, 2009, 2010).

The Mavericks have had winning campaigns in all but one of his seasons and are a combined 231-89 (.722) in conference play under Fleming.
 
Fleming is 8-8 in NCAA Tournament matches.
 
He is 10-23 against MSU Denver and 3-11 against Roadrunner Head Coach Jenny Glenn in previous coaching battles.

Series Histories
 
The Mavericks and Roadrunners have met at least once every season since at least 1993 in a long-standing rivalry that dates back before the Roadrunners joined the RMAC in 1996.  MSU Denver is 34-11 in the 45 meetings between the teams in that time span and swept last year's series, winning in four sets on Sept. 16 in Grand Junction before pulling out a 5-set win just over two weeks later on Oct. 1 in Denver.
 
They will be going for the sweep again while the Mavs will be looking to snap a streak of four consecutive Roadrunner victories.
 
CMU's last win over the Roadrunners was on Mar. 4, 2021 when the then fourth-ranked Mavs defeated the No. 3 Roadrunners en-route to a 2020-21 RMAC Regular Season title during the unusual spring season.
 
The Mavs' last win over the Roadrunners in Denver was on Sept. 18, 2015.  MSU Denver is 19-3 against the Mavs at home in the Division II era series.
 
Up Next
 
With a win over MSU Denver, the Mavericks would advance to the regional championship match for the third time and the first since 2014.
 
They would then play either West Texas A&M or the Colorado School of Mines.  The Mavs dominated Mines in a Senior Day sweep on Oct. 29 and have a 23-19 lead over the Orediggers in the all-time series.
 
CMU last played West Texas A&M since claiming a 2014 NCAA South Central Regional Semifinal win over the Lady Buffs.  CMU is 2-3 against the Lady Buffs in the NCAA Division II era and has won the last two.
 
The Mavs are 1-1 against them in the NCAA Tournament, having each won a home match.
 
The Mavs have surprisingly never faced Mines in the NCAA Division II Tournament.
 
If the Mavs were to lose on Friday, they would end the season with a 22-7 record, their best since going 24-7 in 2018 while also reaching the regional semifinals.