WINTER PARK, Fla. – For three quarters, Colorado Mesa matched Rollins, the No. 8 team in the country, stride-for-stride on their home turf. But in the final 15 minutes, the Maverick couldn't maintain their level of play and CMU suffered a narrow 13-9 road loss to a top-10 opponent.

Freshman Carson Dickey tallied her first career hat trick for the Mavericks, who were tied 9-9 with the Tars after three quarters but failed to find the net in the final period. Shannon Murphy kept the Mavericks in the game by recording 16 saves for the second consecutive match.

With the loss, No. 24 Colorado Mesa is 3-3 on the season, with all three losses coming to ranked opponents. A fourth ranked opponent awaits on Saturday morning, when the Mavericks complete their three-game Florida road trip by traveling to No. 6 Florida Southern.

Dickey, a freshman from Murrieta, California, led the CMU offense with four points thanks to three goals and an assist, all of which came in the first half. Alongside Dickey, four additional Mavericks scored multiple points, with Kiley Davis and Peyton Ivey netting two goals, Justine Anderson recording a goal and an assist and Ali Bryant having two assists.

Colorado Mesa emerged with a halftime lead despite Rollins having the statistical advantages. The Tars outshot Mesa 11-7 in the first quarter, but the Mavericks emerged with a 4-2 lead thanks to goals from Dickey, Taylor Jakeman, Justine Anderson and Kiley Davis, plus three saves from Shannon Murphy. Dickey completed her hat trick by scoring both Maverick goals in the second period as CMU led 6-4 at the break.

Ivey scored twice in the third quarter, the second of which gave CMU an 8-5 lead with 6:13 to play in the third quarter. The game's most frenetic sequence followed when both teams combined for five goals in the final 3:36 of the third quarter, as Rollins attacker Abigail Crawley scored a personal hat trick, Kiley Davis countered with her second goal to put the Mavericks up with 1:03 left, then Rollins beat the buzzer by scoring with a second left to ensure the game was tied at nine after 45 minutes. Despite the rush of goals, Murphy still came up huge with five saves in the period alone.

The Tars showed their credentials by locking things down on both ends of the field and scoring four unanswered goals in the fourth quarter to ice the end result. Rollins outshot CMU 9-2 in the final period and maintained effective pressure as the Mavericks went only 2-for-8 on clears in the second half.

Colorado Mesa next heads to Lakeland to take on No. 6 Florida Southern. It will be a homecoming game of sorts for Mavs head coach Shannon McHale, who served as an assistant coach at Florida Southern for three seasons, including on the Mocs' national championship runner-up team in 2018. The game is scheduled to start at 10:00 a.m. MT.