GRAND JUNCTION, Colo.— Playing in their final regular season home match after being recognized during Senior Day festivities
Emma Shaddix and
Savannah Spitzer combined for 30 kills and a combined .571 attack percentage to lead the Colorado Mesa University Mavericks to a 4-set home win over the visiting and tenacious South Dakota Mines Hardrockers in the regular season finale for both squads on Saturday afternoon at Brownson Arena.
The 25-17, 20-25, 25-19, 25-20 victory allowed the nation's 11
th-ranked Mavericks to finish the regular season with 23-3 overall and 12-2 Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference records. They are guaranteed of the No. 2 seed in next week's RMAC Tournament, which they will begin at home on Tuesday night at 7 o'clock (
UPDATED TIME) against whoever ends up being the No. 7 seed.
Shaddix, the Mavs' graduate student right side, finished the match with 16 kills and hit .577 with just one hitting error on 26 attempts while Spitzer tallied 14 kills on .565 hitting out of the middle. She also tallied two aces and a block assist, surpassing the 1,000 career total point milestone and now has 1,001.
Junior outside hitter
Sydney Leffler also shined in Saturday's with 16 kills as Maverick setter
Sabrina VanDeList tallied her sixth consecutive double-double with 52 assists and 14 digs while quarterbacking the Maverick attack to a .376 team hitting percentage.
CMU's other middle, sophomore
Aesha Alrashed also had a fine effort with nine kills and a match-high five blocks while hitting .529.
Sophomore libero
Allison Waller also had 14 digs to share team-high honors with VanDeList while
Riley Daugherty,
Hahni Johnson and
Jordan Woods all finished with eight digs. Daugherty also put down seven kills offensively.
After second-set wobbles let the Hardrockers back into the match, the Mavericks hit .607 in the third set and .541 in the fourth, recording 38 of their 64 total kills while committing just one hitting error in the final two sets.
Meanwhile, Ivy Vindivich led the Hardrockers with 22 kills on .447 hitting while Alessanda Meoni chipped in 15 more for the visitors, who end the regular season at 17-9 overall and to 10-4 in conference play. They will now hope for a Regis win at CSU Pueblo in later Saturday action, which would give the Hardrockers either the No. 3 or 4 seed in next week's tournament, allowing them to host a RMAC Tournament match for the first time in program history. Otherwise, they would be the No. 5 seed and would travel to Pueblo on Tuesday.
Regis is 11-2 while CSU Pueblo is 10-3 entering that match, which begins at 6 p.m. Saturday.
CMU will also be scoreboard watching and will be hoping for Fort Lewis to upset national poll No. 8 MSU Denver in Denver, in a match that is underway as of the writing of this article. If the Skyhawks were able to win that road match, CMU would share the RMAC regular season title with MSU Denver, which entered the day with 12-1 in RMAC action.
However, the Roadrunners would hold the tie-breaker for the top seed in the RMAC Tournament.
Shaddix, Spitzer and 2022 senior
Erin Curl, who did not have a Senior Day recognition last year, were honored before the match, before the Mavericks shook off the emotions in quick order, jumping out to a 9-3 and 12-4 leads while cruising to the opening-set win. The Mavs recorded 14 kills and hit .379 in that frame.
However, the Hardrockers, went point for point with the Mavs in the second set, eventually going on a 4-0 run featuring three straight kills from Vindivich and Meoni to take a 23-19 lead.
Leffer temporarily stopped that spurt with a kill but was blocked by Meoni and Madison Smith on the ensuing point before Meoni evened the match at a set a piece with her sixth kill of the frame.
Vindivich also had seven kills in the second set.
The 'Rockers also took a 3-1 lead early in the third set and led 7-5 before Spitzer and Leffler each recorded kills in a 6-0 Maverick run that also included three Hardrocker hitting errors, one of which was because of a Maverick block, and a ball handling error.
The Mavs never looked back and extended what was a 11-7 lead to 17-11 and 19-12 en-route to the third set win.
The Mavs recorded 17 errorless kills in that frame and then tallied 21 with just one hitting error in the fourth as they took a 10-6 lead before the Hardrockers rallied to take a 13-12 lead.
The set was later tied at 17 before Leffler had back-to-back kills before adding another after a Maverick service error to extend the lead to 21-18.
Shaddix and Daughterty then went on to record three more kills as the Mavs finished off the win, their 12
th in 13 home matches this season.
Stay tuned to the RMAC (
www.rmacsports.org) and CMU (
www.cmumavericks.com) websites for details about the RMAC Tournament bracket.
