CANYON, Texas— The Colorado Mesa University volleyball season came to an abrupt finish as the nation's 12^th-ranked Mavericks dropped a 3-set decision to Dallas Baptist University in the opening round of the NCAA Division II Tournament on Thursday night here in the West Texas A&M University Fieldhouse, more commonly known as "The Box".
 
The Mavericks, who were the fourth seed in the South Central Regional portion of the tournament, saw their season ended with a 24-5 record as the now 24-7 and fifth-seeded Patriots moved on to Friday's regional semifinal against the top-seeded and host Lady Buffs, with their first NCAA Tournament win in four program appearances. 
 
The Patriots, who also defeated the Mavs for the first time in ten all-time meetings, hit .481 as a team, in Thursday's victory, committing just five hitting errors.
 
The Mavs were guilty of 19 hitting miscues, ten of which were the result of Patriot blocks, and hit .115 as a team, their third lowest hitting percentage of the entire season.
 
Maverick redshirt senior Savannah Spitzer was one bright spot on an otherwise difficult night.  The middle hitter recorded ten kills on just 16 swings, hitting .562. She capped her season with a .386 attack percentage, the best in the region and the fourth best in CMU history, just shy of her 2022 mark of .389.  Her career attack percentage of .370 over 106 career matches is the third best in program history.
 
Spitzer put down 869 kills and recorded 1,027 total points in her five indoor seasons as a Mav.
 
Maverick junior outside hitter Sydney Leffler also managed eight kills while the rest of the Mavericks were held to 11.
 
Redshirt junior Sabrina VanDeList recorded 25 assists to finish the year with 1,176, the most for any Maverick since 2014.

Leffler finishes the year with 441 kills, the most for any Maverick since 2016.  All three aformentioned Mavs were First Team All-Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference and all-region picks.  Leffler was the RMAC and D2CCA South Central Regional Player of the Year while VanDeList nabbed RMAC Setter of the Year honors.
 
DBU had 44 as a team as Denaley Fuller, the AVCA South Central Region Player of the Year, recorded 13 while hitting .333 from the outside while Saide Washburn and Abby Phillips combined for 16 error-less kills while hitting a combined .727.  Washburn hit .800 and also led all players with five blocks while Phillips hit .667 on 12 swings while tallying three blocks.
 
The Patriots dominated the first and third sets, hitting at a blistering .542 and .444 rate while the Mavs committed 15 of their hitting errors while racking up just 14 kills in those two sets.
 
The Mavs did play well in the second set, hitting .355, but were only able to slow the Patriots to a .467 team mark.
 
The Mavs led most of the second set and had a 21-18 advantage on a Spitzer kill before the Patriots rallied to tie the set at 22 on a block before going up 23-22 on a Karly Wells kill.
 
Washburn then served a pair of aces, the second of which went off the top of the tape, to close out the frame.
 
Another 4-0 Patriot run then helped DBU to seize a 5-2 lead early in the third set as they cruised to the victory.
 
CMU had defeated DBU at home on Sept. 9 with their eighth win of what ended up being a 11-0 start.  The Mavs had also claimed a 5-set win over the Patriots in the first round of last year's regional, played in Denver.
 
CMU is now 8-11 all-time in the NCAA Tournament, having qualified in each of the last three years after going 15-1 during the 2021 spring season, delayed and abbreviated by COVID-19.  There was no NCAA Tournament that season.