GRAND JUNCTION, Colo. – The Colorado Mesa University beach volleyball team will wrap up the regular season at home, playing host to fellow Division II power Texas A&M-Kingsville in a Friday afternoon dual doubleheader before playing in a pairs tournament with the Javelinas on Saturday.
Friday's duals between the reigning (CMU) and former (2018, TAMUK) AVCA Small College NCAA Division II National Champions will get underway at Noon and 2 p.m. and will be streamed on the RMAC Network.
Saturday's action, which will include round-robin pool play prior to a single elimination bracket, will begin at 10 a.m. and expected to run until around 2:30 p.m. No live coverage will be available, but a full recap will be posted that evening.
Mesa (Ariz.) Community College was originally scheduled to participate in tri-duals on both days of this weekend, but has pulled out, resulting in the change of format for the upcoming contests.
Follow the Mavs
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 made their third and final trip of the season to Arizona last week, playing four NCAA Division I institutions during the Wildcat Spring Challenge hosted by the University of Arizona in Tucson. The Mavericks began the weekend with 4-1 wins over both Missouri State and UTEP last Friday but were downed 3-2 by Santa Clara and 5-0 by then No. 18 Arizona on Saturday.
The split left the Mavericks with a 12-7 overall record.
On an individual basis, the Mavericks No. 2 and 3 pairs both went 3-1 throughout the weekend, posting wins over Missouri State, UTEP and Santa Clara pairs.
The No. 2 duo of
Hahni Johnson and
Savannah Spitzer and the No. 3 pair of
Jada Hall and
Gracyn Spresser are now tied for the team-lead with 13-6 records. The No. 4 duo of
Sabrina VanDeList and
Tye Wedhorn is also 13-6 this season after going 2-2 last weekend.
A complete recap of each day's action can be found at the links below.
Final home matches
This weekend's action will mark the final regular season and final home matches for the Mavs' three fifth-year seniors in
Macie Lachemann,
Holly Schmidt and
Tye Wedhorn, who have led the Mavericks to unprecedent success in their time in CMU uniform. Two other Maverick redshirt juniors in
Savannah Ott and
Hailey Peters will also be making their final appearances in Grand Junction.
Schmidt recently became the program's winningest player and enters this weekend with 40 career wins, two more than her No. 1 partner Lachemann, who has 38. Wedhorn is now tied for third in program history with 36 career wins alongside her partner of two years
Sabrina VanDeList, and former program record holder and current assistant coach
Ara Norwood.
Lachemann, Schmidt, Wedhorn and VanDeList, who is a junior, all co-set the CMU record for single-season wins last year with 16. VanDeList and Wedhorn were also named as the AVCA/College Beach Volleyball Pair of the Week on Apr. 18, 2022 after going 6-0 during the national tournament. They also went on to earn a AVCA Top Flight Award.
Lachemann and Schmidt have played in the No. 1 spot of the Maverick lineup this year and represented the Mavericks at the inaugural AVCA Fall Beach Championships in November. They are 13-12 together this year, including their 12-7 dual-meet record this spring.
Ott and Peters are 7-3 together in the No. 5 spot of the Maverick lineup this year and went 9-3 together last year, winning their pool at the Pairs Challenge at last year's AVCA Small College Championship. They had advanced to the title match of the of the 24-pair affair in 2021 as well.
Perfect at home
The Mavericks raised their all-time program record at home to 12-0 with two 5-0 wins over Trinidad State Junior College on Mar. 16. Those matches were their first and only other home matches of the year at the CMU Beach Courts.
The Mavs have now defeated Trinidad State four times at home over the past two years They have also defeated Utah four times and have defeated Colorado Northwestern Community College twice. Their other two home wins came over Salt Lake Community College (2022) and Colorado College's club team (2018).
This weekend's visit will be the first for Texas A&M-Kingsville.
Single-Season Records on alert
The Mavericks have a good chance at setting a new program-record for team wins, especially if they fare well against the Javelinas this week. The 2022 national title-winning team went 16-10 to smash the former record of seven wins, set in 2019. This year's squad is just four wins away from matching that record and has this weekend and next week's AVCA Small College Championships as opportunities to do so.
On an individual basis, each of the top eight Mavericks in the lineup in pairs one through four, have 13 wins, which is just three shy of the record of 16.
Know Your Foe
The Javelinas will enter the weekend with a 9-13 overall record after going 1-2 at last week's Conni & Jay Wise Islander Classic at Texas A&M-Corpus Christi. They defeated Houston Christian, 3-2 last Friday before falling 3-2 to Stephen F. Austin and 4-1 to the host Islanders on Saturday. They had gone 3-1 on the previous weekend at the Louisiana-Monroe Bayou Bash, winning three straight.
Coach Tanya Allen-Gonzalez's team is 3-12 against NCAA Division I institutions this season and has a 2-1 record against fellow Division II squads.
Junior Adrienne VanBrunt has played in the No. 1 spot throughout the season alongside two partners in sophomore Madelyn Wallace and freshman Rylan Pollard, a Cherry Creek High School product and Greenwood Village, Colorado native, who is one of just two out-of-state players on an otherwise all-Texan roster. VanBrunt is 4-18 and has a 3-10 mark with Wallace and a 1-8 record with Pollard, who is also 4-9 with Rylie Anderson at the No. 2 spot.
The No. 3 pair of junior Grace Gettys and freshman Olivia Zeigler has been the post consistent and successful, posting a 14-8 record thus far. The all-freshman duo Meghan Stiefer and Kalania Vasquez also have a solid 13-8 record together, going 11-7 at No. 4 and 2-1 at No. 5.
The Javelinas won the 2018 AVCA Small College Beach Championship national title. They then finished as the runners-up in both 2019 and 2021 before taking sixth place last year with a 4-2 record.
Series History
Friday's meetings will be the fifth and sixth in the growing rivalry with the Javelinas, who have won three of the previous four.
CMU won the last match-up by a 5-0 score in the challenge round of last year's AVCA Small College Beach National Championships en-route to the national title. The Javelinas had won 3-2 in Kingsville, Texas on Feb. 25 of last year during the Mavs' season-opening weekend.
Up Next
The Mavericks will look to defend their AVCA Small College Beach Championship National Title when they head to the national tournament in Tavares, Florida. Competition will run from next Friday-Sunday (Apr. 14-16). Seeding and schedules will be announced by the AVCA early next week.
