The Colorado Mesa women's basketball team worked its way into the Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference Tournament as the No. 7 seed and will travel to play No. 2 seed Colorado School of Mines tonight at 5:30pm in Lockridge Arena.
 
TOURNEY TIME
Colorado Mesa has qualified for the conference tournament in each of head coach Taylor Wagner's 11 seasons at the helm of the Mavericks. It is also the 13^th straight trip to the RMAC Tournament with the last season they didn't make the tournament being the 2009-10 season where they were 12^th in the standings.
 
During Wagner's time as the head coach, the Mavericks have won the tournament four times with the most recent win coming during the 2019-20 season when they defeated Westminster 60-48 in the friendly confines of Brownson Arena.
 
THE RUBBER MATCH
The Mavericks will meet up with the Colorado School of Mines Orediggers in the first round of the conference tournament and it will be the third meeting of the season between the two programs.
 
The two teams split the previous two matchups with each earning the win on their opponent's home floor. Mines claimed a 67-55 win over the Mavericks in the conference opener for both schools on December 2 in Grand Junction. The Orediggers had four players in double figures while the Mavericks got 19 points from Laura Gutierrez as she was 7-for-18 from the field.
 
In the second matchup of the year, Colorado Mesa had four players in double figures and used a 13-3 run to close out the game in a 59-52 win over No. 12 Mines. Olivia Reed had 15 points and 11 rebounds while Monica Brooks had 14 points and eight rebounds.
 
FRESHMAN PHENOM
Olivia Reed has taken the conference by storm and she has the numbers to back it up. Reed is averaging 12.6 points and 9.5 rebounds per game during her first collegiate season all while stacking up 13 double doubles this season. She has reached double figure scoring in 20 of the Mavericks 28 games this season. She did have one goose egg this year and that came against……Colorado School of Mines in the first matchup.
 
She has stacked up 267 rebounds, which is a program freshman record, and ranks ninth on the single season rebounding chart. With six rebounds tonight, she would move into eighth passing Maverick great Katrina Selsor on the single season list.
 
On the defensive front, she has 45 blocked shots this season, which is second in a season for a freshman, but with three blocks tonight she would be the freshman record holder moving ahead of Susan Luecke's 47 blocks in her freshman season in 1996.
 
DAME DIMES
Sophomore Kylie Kravig has taken the reins of the offense for the Mavericks this season after sitting behind floor general Mariah Martin last year. She has handed out 135 assists which currently ranks her eighth on the single season assist list with only needing five dimes to reach the top ten in a season.
 
She had a season-high 11 assists on December 30 against CSU Pueblo in a narrow one-point loss to the Pack.
 
KNOW YOUR FOE
The Colorado School of Mines Orediggers have been a force in the RMAC over the last several years with this year's club being no different. They enter the tournament with a 22-5 record with a record of 18-4 inside the conference. They are the top scoring team in the RMAC at 73.9 points per game while allowing 60.1 points per game which ranks third in the conference.
 
Megan Van de Graaf leads the Orediggers in scoring at 13.6 points and 5.9 rebounds per game. Van de Graaf had a monster game in the season finale where she had 31 points and nine rebounds against Fort Lewis.
 
It's not just Van de Graaf that make the Orediggers go, but a plethora of veterans that have been with the program for several years. Ashley Steffeck and Sammy Van Sickle are strong players on both ends of the floor that are household names.
 
Head coach Brittany Simpson is in her 11^th season as the head coach of the Orediggers. She is the program leader in wins and winning percentage at 196-112 (.636) and has won three conference titles during her tenure. Simpson, formerly Rowley, played her college basketball at Colorado Mesa from 2002-06 where she averaged 8.8 points, 2.3 rebounds and shot over 89 percent from the free-throw line which still ranks her among the all-time best.
 
WHAT'S NEXT
Its survive and advance time for the Mavericks as they will have to win three games in a row to keep their season alive and play another week. Any loss will end their season and drive for a spot in the NCAA Tournament.