DENVER— The Colorado Mesa University women's lacrosse team claimed its seventh straight win of the season and advanced to the Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference Tournament title-game for the third straight year after posting a stellar defensive effort in a 14-6 semifinal round win over UCCS on Friday night here at the Regis University Lacrosse Field.
 
The victory set up yet another showdown with the host and No. 1 seeded Rangers, who had earlier defeated fourth-seeded Westminster, 20-6.
 
The Mavs and Rangers split the regular season series and the RMAC's regular season titles and will face off in the tournament title match for the third straight year as well on Sunday at noon.
 
CMU, ranked 24^th nationally, improved to 11-5 with Friday's while seventh-ranked Regis will enter Sunday's match with a 16-1 record.  The Rangers' only loss came to the Mavericks in overtime on Apr. 23 in Grand Junction.
 
UCCS saw its season come to an end with a 6-11 record.  Three of the Mountain Lions' losses came to the Mavericks, who have now won all ten all-time match-ups between the teams.  Three of those victories have come in the RMAC Tournament semifinals in the same number of years.
 
In Friday's victory, 12 different Mavericks combined to cause a season-high 22 turnovers, the third highest single-game mark in CMU program history.  The Mavs also held the Mountain Lions without a goal for more than 33 straight minutes extending what was a 5-4 lead to 11-4.
 
Meanwhile, three different Mavericks recorded hat-tricks on the offensive end.  Kiley Davis led the charge with four goals while adding an assist.  Freshman Justine Anderson and Ali Bryant also registered 3-goal nights while Courtney Havel added two goals.
 
Taylor Jakeman and Carson Dickey also scored for the Mavs.  Jakeman and Melanie Evans also finished with three assists apiece.
 
Scoring was at a premium in the middle quarters after the teams exchanged a flurry of goals in the first quarter and the early part of the second, when UCCS' Julia Patrick cut the Maverick lead to 5-4 just 2:28 into that second stanza.
 
Neither team scored for 12 minutes until Davis broke the streak with two goals just 29 seconds apart to give the Mavericks a 7-4 lead heading into halftime.
 
Jakeman and Havel then scored the lone two third-quarter goals at the 11:12 and 0:40 marks of the period, respectively before Bryant and Anderson increased the Maverick lead to 11-4 in the opening five minutes of the fourth.
 
The Mountain Lions then scored twice to cut the gap to 11-6 with 8 ½ minutes to go before free position shot goals by Bryant and Havel surrounding a Havel goal iced the Mavericks' win.
 
The Mavericks finished with a 32-15 advantage in shots and a 26 -19 edge in ground balls.
 
RMAC Defensive Player of the Year Kelsey Viger had four of those ground balls as did goalkeeper Shannon Murphy, who also made six saves.  Viger also had three caused turnovers as did Larkin Daly and Bryant.  Bryant also had three ground balls and four draw controls while Emme Rezoski had a game-high seven draw wins.