GRAND JUNCTION, Colo. – The Colorado Mesa University Mavericks will look to defend their NCAA Division II title at the AVCA Small College Beach Championships this week in Tavares, Florida.
The Mavericks, 14-7 as a team this year, are seeded fourth overall amongst the 14 teams in the NCAA Division II field and have been placed as the highest seed in Pool D for the early stages of the tournament, which will run through Sunday at Hickory Point Beach.
Tournament Format/Schedule
The Mavericks will play their first two pool play against 12
th-seeded Erskine and 13
th-seeded Florida Southern on Friday at 8 a.m. and 2:30 p.m. EDT (6 a.m. & 12:30 p.m. Mountain), respectively. They will then take on No. 5 seed Spring Hill in their final pool-play match on Saturday morning at 11:15 EDT (9:15 Mountain) in what will be re-match of last year's title-decider, which the Mavs won, 3-1.
The results of those matches will determine which team the Mavericks will play from Pool C in Saturday's Challenge Round, which in turn will determine teams positions for the Gold, Silver and Bronze brackets on Sunday.
The Mavs have also entered two pairs into the Pairs Challenge tournament, which features 40 duos from the NCAA Division II, Division III and NAIA squads at the event. Those pairs have been divided into ten groups of four and will play three round-robin matches within their groups throughout the day on Friday.
Follow the Mavs
Results from the tournament will be accessible
throughout the event here.
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 completed their regular season at home last weekend against fellow Division II power Texas A&M-Kingsville, which is seeded sixth for this week's tournament. The Mavericks won 11 of the 12 total matches, including exhibitions, against the Javelina in Friday's dual doubleheader, winning the duals 4-1 and 5-0.
In between the duals, the Mavericks recognized their five departing seniors.
The two teams then played a pairs tournament last Saturday, which CMU No. 2 pair
Hahni Johnson and
Savannah Spitzer won. The Mavs had three of the four semifinals and five of the eight quarterfinal duos in that tournament.
A complete recap of each day's action can be found at these links:
Friday (Dual Doubleheader)
Saturday (Pairs Tournament)
Still perfect
Last Friday's dual wins allowed the Mavericks to improve to 14-0 all-time in limited home opportunities throughout the program's history. The Mavs went 4-0 this year having swept a doubleheader from Trinidad State Junior College back on Mar. 17.
CMU is 4-0 at home against Trinidad State and is also 4-0 against Division I Utah. The Mavs are also 2-0 against Colorado Northwestern Community College. Their other two home wins came over Salt Lake Community College (2022) and Colorado College's club team (2018).
Record-Setting Mavs
After racking up the wins over the weekend, three of the Mavs' four top pairs now have 19 wins this season while the other has 18. All four have surpassed the former CMU single-season record of 16, co-set last year by
Macie Lachemann/
Holly Schmidt and
Sabrina VanDeList/
Tye Wedhorn, who are amongst this year's record-setting players.
VanDeList and Wedhorn are 19-7 this season while Lachemann and Schmidt are 19-3. VanDeList and Wedhorn are 15-6 in duals in the No. 4 position and went 4-1 in Sunday's pairs tournament, winning Pool C before advanced to the championship semifinals. Lachemann and Schmidt are now 19-13 this year and also advanced to the semifinals after winning Pool A before being downed by Johnson and Spitzer. They are 14-7 in the No. 1 position of the Maverick dual lineup and represented the Mavericks at the AVCA Fall College Championships.
Johnson and Spitzer were 5-1 in Saturday's tournament, avenging their only loss in the final, and in the process raised their season-long mark to 19-8. They are 14-7 in duals, including a 13-7 mark at No. 2.
Click here to view the Mavericks' season statistics.
Possible Team Record
With their 14-7 overall record, the Mavericks will enter this weekend's tournament just two wins shy of matching last year's title winning squad as the winningest in program-history. Last year's team went 16-10 to set the CMU record for dual wins in a season.
Previous Success
The Mavericks have gone 11-7 as a team in their previous three AVCA Small College Championship appearances, qualifying for the Gold Bracket in each. The tournament began in 2018, although the Mavericks did not participate until 2019, when they went 4-3 while taking fourth place overall. The Mavs are one of three previous champions.
The 2020 tournament was canceled.
The Mavs then went 2-3 and tied for fifth place in 2021 after falling in the Gold Bracket Quarterfinals to Texas A&M-Kingsville, the 2018 champions, before going 5-1 to win last year's title.
Tampa won the 2019 and 2021 titles before CMU took the top spot last year, defeating both of the former champions en-route to the final and the title.
A look back to last year
In 2022, the Mavericks went 5-1 and won their final three matches at the AVCA Small College Championships to claim the national title. The Mavs entered as the No. 6 seed and went 2-1 in pool play defeating Catawba and Wayne State before dropping to No. 3 seed Palm Beach Atlantic, 3-2.
The Mavs then bounced back to blank Texas A&M-Kingsville, 5-0 in the challenge round before knocking off defending champion Tampa by a 3-2 score in the Gold Bracket semifinal. The Mavs then got past Spring Hill, 3-1 in the final.
Tye Wedhorn and
Sabrina VanDeList went 5-0 throughout the tournament, dropping just two sets, and were later named as the AVCA/College Beach Volleyball (CBVP) National Pair of the Week.
Johnson and Spitzer were also named as AVCA All-Americans as the No. 1 duo on one of the top-3 placing teams.
Pairs Challenge Success
In 2022, both of the Mavericks' Pairs Challenge won their respective groups.
Savannah Ott and
Hailey Peters, who will play for the Mavs in the No. 5 spot of the team lineup, won both of their matches in straight sets. They had advanced to the final of a 24-team tournament in 2021 as well.
Rianne Brown and
Sydney Leffler also went 2-0 with straight set victories last season and are back to play once again this year. They have been drawn into Pool 8 and will play pairs from Tusculum, Ottawa (Kan.) and Erskine on Friday.
CMU's other Pairs Challenge Duo is Issy Burns and
Lizzy Hood, who have been placed in Pool 9. They will take on teams from Palm Beach Atlantic, Missouri Baptist and Mobile.
Burns and Hood are 3-4 together this year, having gone 2-4 at last Saturday's Pairs Challenge with Texas A&M-Kingsville. Brown and Leffler went 0-4 in that event but have a 2-1 record together when playing in Exhibition "sixes" matches during team duals.
The rest of the field
Tampa is the top seed in this year's tournament. The Spartans won consecutive titles in 2019 and 2021— the 2020 event was canceled due to CoVID— before taking third at last year's championship after falling to the Mavericks in the semifinal round. They have a 16-12 record this season and are in Pool A with No. 8 seed Tusculum and No. 9 seed Carson-Newman.
Concordia University Irvine leads Pool B as the second seed. The Golden Eagles are 15-13 and have played many of the same opponents as the Mavericks this season. They were 3-3 and finished fourth at last year's tournament. They will be joined in Pool B by No. 7 seed Saint Leo and No. 10 Eckerd.
Palm Beach Atlantic is the No. 3 seed and headlines Pool C. The Sailfish enter the tournament with a 16-12 overall record and will play No. 6 seed Texas A&M-Kingsville, No. 11 Wayne State and No. 14 McKendree in Pool Play.
The Mavericks are 3-0 against Pool C this year, having defeated Wayne State by a 5-0 score back on Mar. 11 before winning last week's duals over the Javelinas.
Know Your Foes
Here's a closer look at the Mavericks' three Pool D opponents.
Erskine (Friday, Apr. 14 – 8 a.m. EDT (6 a.m. Mountain)
The uniquely named Flying Feet, who hail from Due West, South Carolina, will enter the weekend with a 4-25 team record and have lost six straight matches since defeating Berry College (Ga.) in their first of three matches at the Apr. 4 Bears Beach Bash, hosted by Mercer. They were 0-4 at the Coastal Carolina Invitational last week.
Karina Petrovich and Kylie McKean won two of their Court 2 matches last weekend.
Last year's Flying Feet squad went 2-4 at the AVCA event.
Florida Southern (Friday, Apr. 14 – 2:30 p.m. EDT (12:30 p.m. Mountain)
The Mocs, who hail from Lakeland, just over a 60-mile trip from Tavares, will enter this weekend with a 7-18 record after splitting their Senior Day tri-dual with Lake Sumter Community College and Palm Beach Atlantic last weekend. They went 19-9 overall last year and were 2-4 at the AVCA Small College Championships.
Emma Shaddix and Olivia D'Agostino are the Mocs' No. 1 pair. Shaddix is committed to join the CMU indoor and beach volleyball programs next year as a graduate transfer.
Spring Hill (Saturday, Apr. 15 – 11:15 a.m. EDT (9:15 a.m. Mountain)
The Sandy Badgers, who hail from Mobile, Alabama, will enter the weekend with a 13-11 record and wrapped up the regular season by going 2-2 at last weekend's ULM (Louisiana-Monroe) Beach Invitational, where they defeated Hendrix and Central Arkansas.
Last year's team was 23-9 and went 4-2 at the AVCA event, while falling to the Mavericks in the final.
Seven of the ten Badgers to have appeared in the title match are on this year's roster.
Series Histories
The Mavericks have never played Erskine or Florida Southern and have a 1-1 record all-time against Spring Hill.
The Mavs are a combined 3-2 all-time against Pool A with a 1-2 record against Tampa and 1-0 records against both Tusculum and Carson-Newman.
The Mavs are 2-5 against Pool B teams, holding a 1-5 record against CUI and a 1-0 mark against Eckerd. They have never played Saint Leo.
The Mavs are 5-5 all-time against the Pool C teams, holding a 0-2 record against Palm Beach Atlantic, a 3-3 record with Texas A&M-Kingsville and a 2-0 record against Wayne State. They are 3-0 against that Pool this year.
Up Next
This weekend's tournament will wrap up the Mavericks' eighth season in program history.
