GRAND JUNCTION, Colo. – Winners of four straight and nine of their last 11, the Colorado Mesa University beach volleyball team will continue their season with their third and final trip to Arizona to play four NCAA Division I foes at the Wildcat Spring Challenge in Tucson on Friday and Saturday.
 
The Mavericks, 10-5 overall, will play Missouri State and UTEP on Friday before facing Santa Clara and the host and 18^th-ranked Arizona Wildcats on Saturday at Bear Down Beach.
 
The matches against UTEP and Arizona will be re-matches from the opening weekend of the season, when the Mavericks played at the Cactus Classic in Tucson on Feb. 24 and 25.  The Mavs swept UTEP, 5-0, and gave the Wildcats all they could handle, before falling 3-2.
 
Follow the Mavs
 
Live stats for all four matches will be accessible at the link above.
 
Daily recaps of each day's action will be posted on www.cmumavericks.com and the CMU Beach Volleyball Instagram Account is a great follow. - https://www.instagram.com/cmu_beachvolleyball/
 
Last Time Out
 
The Mavericks were in southern California last week, playing six matches over three days from Tuesday-Thursday (Mar. 21-23).  The Mavs went 4-2 on the trip winning each of their last four.
 
The Mavs began the trip in Long Beach, falling to 12^th-ranked Long Beach State and Boise State, receiving votes in the national poll at the time, but quickly bounced back to defeat Division I CSUN, 3-2 on Wednesday in Northridge.  They also defeated NAIA Hope International there later in the day before dominating a pair of junior colleges in Golden West and Irvine Valley on Thursday.  The Mavs did not drop a single set in either of those duals.
 
The Mavs' No. 1 and 3 pairs both went 4-2 to lead the team throughout the week.  The Mavs also went a combined 5-1 in the No. 5 slot of the lineup as Savannah Ott and Hailey Peters went 3-1.  Ott and Peters also played with and recorded wins with Sydney Leffler in other matches
 
A complete recap of each day's action can be found here...

Tuesday, Mar. 21 (vs. #12 Long Beach State/#RV Boise State)
Wednesday, Mar. 22 (vs. CSUN/Hope International)
Thursday, Mar. 23 (vs. Golden West/Irvine Valley)
 
Record-Setting Week
 
Maverick fifth-year senior Holly Schmidt became CMU's winningest player in program history last week, racking up four Court 1 wins with partner Macie Lachemann, who now has the second most career wins.  Schmidt now has 39 career wins with Lachemann has 37.  Both went past current assistant coach Ara Norwood, who recorded 36 in her 5-year playing career from 2018-22.
 
Schmidt matched Norwood's record in the dual against Boise State on Tuesday before she and Lachemann came from behind to win a key 3-set (14-21, 21-18, 15-9) match over CSUN's Lauren Eknoian and Tasha Mae on Wednesday morning, helping the Mavs to a 3-2 overall victory.
 
On their heels
 
The Maverick No. 4 duo of Sabrina VanDeList and Tye Wedhorn is right behind in terms of career wins.  They both have 34 to rank fourth in program history for career wins.
 
On Thursday, VanDeList and Wedhorn surrendered just one point in a 21-0, 21-1 domination of Golden West's Erin Johnson and Carina Koerfer.
 
Double-Figures
 
As a team, the Mavericks are now 10-5 and have reached double figures for wins for the second straight year.  The Mavs were a program-best 16-10 last year en-route to winning the NCAA Division II title at the AVCA Small College Championships.
 
Each of the Mavs' top four pairs have also reached double-figures for wins this season.  Lachemann/Schmidt and VanDeList/Wedhorn lead the way and have 11-4 dual records in the No. 1 and 4 spots, respectively.  Lachemann and Schmidt have the most overall wins (12) as they represented the Mavs at the AVCA Fall Beach Championships in November.
 
Meanwhile, the No. 2 and 3 Maverick pairs both have 10-5 records.  Returning AVCA All-Americans Hahni Johnson and Savannah Spitzer are 9-5 at No. 2 and 1-0 at No. 3 while Jada Hall and Gracyn Spresser are also 10-5.  They have gone 9-5 and were 1-0 in their lone start on Court 2 when they switches positions in the CMU lineup for the match against Park University-Gilbert on Mar. 12.
 
All four pairs have the potential to set a new CMU single-season record for wins.  The current mark is 16, which Lachemann, Schmidt, VanDeList and Wedhorn all posted last year.
 
Former Mates
 
Friday morning's dual against Missouri State, slated for a 10 a.m. Mountain Time (9 a.m. Arizona Time) start, will re-unite Spresser with former teammates.  The Maverick redshirt freshman out of the Northwestern Arkansas community of Johnson redshirted at Missouri State, located just over a 2-hour dive away in Southwestern Missouri city of Springfield, last year.
 
About the Opponents
 
Missouri State (Friday, Mar. 31- 10 a.m. Mountain/9 a.m. Arizona)
 
The Bears currently have an 8-7 record and are coming off a 0-3 record at the TCU Tournament in Fort Worth, Texas where they fell to Texas, to FIU (Florida International), currently ranked 16^th in the AVCA Collegiate Beach Coaches Top 20 Poll, and now ninth-ranked Cal.

Two weeks earlier, the Bears went 1-3 against Division II and Florida-based foes at the Battle of the Bay Tournament. 
 
They have lost seven of their last eight after getting off to a 7-0 start in their first two home tournaments, a stretch that included three wins over fellow Division I opposition (Lindenwood, UT Martin x 2).
 
Manuela Niemyer and MacKenize Steele lead the team with 11-4 records.  They are 11-1 in the No. 4 spot but are 0-3 when playing in the No. 3 position of Head Coach Ashley Emery's lineup.
 
UTEP (Friday, Mar. 31 – 2 p.m. Mountain/1 p.m. Arizona)
 
The Miners, who have a beach program for the first time this season, are currently 3-10 heading into the weekend.  They went 1-3 in their last action at the Mardi Gras Classic in New Orleans on Mar. 17-18, claiming their lone win of the weekend over Nichols by a 4-1 score.  They also won 3-2 at Southeastern Louisiana on Mar. 15 and over Master's (Calif.) by a 4-1 score on Mar. 11 in what was their first victory.
 
The Miners' No. 5 pair of Madison Hill and Marian Ovalle have posted a respectable 5-8 record this season to lead the team.  Krista Paegle and Serena Patterson are also 3-5 in the No. 2 spot but have dropped their last four matches since winning at Southeastern Louisiana.
 
Santa Clara (Saturday, Apr. 1 – 10 a.m. Mountain/9 a.m. Arizona)
 
The Broncos will enter the weekend with a 7-7 record but have dropped three straight against ranked competition last weekend in Santa Cruz, California at the West Coast Challenge.  They started off the weekend with a  5-0 win over San Francisco before falling to No. 18 Pepperdine and No. 7 LMU by the same score.  They then faced Pepperdine again, falling 4-1 to finish fourth in the tournament.
 
The win over the USF Dons was their fifth straight 5-0 victory after they had started the season 2-4 with wins over Pacific and Sacramento State.
 
Arizona (Saturday, Apr. 1 – Noon Mountain/11 a.m. Arizona)
 
The Wildcats remained in the No. 18 spot of this week's AVCA National Poll and will enter the weekend with a 12-3 record and a 4-match winning streak.  They are 7-1 at home in two previous two home tournaments.
 
Three of their most recent wins have come via 5-0 sweeps over Arizona Christian, Central Arkansas and at Stephen F. Austin.  They also won 4-1 over Cal Poly at home on Mar. 18 after dropping their only home match the day earlier by a 4-1 score to Texas A&M-Corpus Christi.
 
Their only other losses have come to nationally-ranked Washington and California at the Pac-12 South Invitational.  They also have a win over Pepperdine, currently ranked 19^th, but 17^th at the time.
 
Grace Cook and Alana Rennie have been brilliant this season, going 13-2 together having played in the No. 3 spot in all but one of the Wildcats' outings. 
 
Mirando Erro and Annie Kost have also put up a strong 11-3 record in the No. 5 spot while Sarah Blacker (10-4) and Alex Parkhurst (10-5) have been solid on Court 1.  The Wildcats are also a combined 12-3 at No. 4 with a few different pairings.
 
Series Histories
 
The Mavs will be looking for their first ever win over Missouri State as the Bears have won the previous four match-ups, three of which were in a span of six days during the 2018 spring break trip to Southern California.  The last meeting was on Apr. 2, 2021 in Tucson.  All four previous match-ups have been decided by 4-1 scores.
 
The Mavs defeated UTEP on Feb. 24 of this season by a 5-0 score, the only previous meeting with the Miners, who are sponsoring a program for the first time this season.
 
The Mavs defeated Santa Clara by a 3-2 score on Apr. 5, 2022 in the only previous match-up with the Broncos.
 
The Mavs are 0-7 all-time against Arizona having played them each spring since 2018 and in 2016.  Saturday's match-up will be the second of this season.  Macie Lachemann and Holly Schmidt were 21-15, 21-15 winners over Dilara Gedikoglu and Alex Parkhurst in the top flight while Hahni Johnson and Savannah Spitzer won a 16-14 third-set to take a tight 3-set win over Abby Russell and Hope Shannon on Court 2.
 
Up Next
 
The Mavericks will return home for just the second time this season hosting Mesa Community College and Texas A&M-Kingsville during back-to-back tri-duals on Apr. 7 and 8.
 
They will then wrap up the season at the AVCA Small College Beach Championships from Apr. 14-16 in Tavares, Florida.