GRAND JUNCTION, Colo.— Winners of all 11 of their matches, including each of the last five in straight sets, the undefeated and nation's 11
th-ranked Colorado Mesa University Maverick volleyball team will have its biggest test of the season thus far, hosting 2-time defending Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference Champion and No. 8 MSU Denver in a national poll top-11 match-up on Friday at 6 p.m. in Brownson Arena. The Mavs will then face another strong challenge just 22 hours later at 4 o'clock on Saturday afternoon, when the Colorado School of Mines Orediggers, receiving votes in the national poll, will venture in as the Mavs begin a 4-match home-stand this weekend.
Tickets for both weekend matches are still available at
www.cmumavericks.com/tickets and can be seen through the
RMAC Network. Live statistics can also be accessed at the link above.
The Mavs will enter the weekend with a perfect 11-0 record and lead the RMAC standings by a half-match at 3-0 after sweeping Westminster University on Tuesday night in Salt Lake City. MSU Denver, 7-3 overall, sports a 2-0 RMAC record. Mines, which plays at Westminster on Friday, is 6-4 overall and 1-1 in RMAC plus thus far.
Last Time Out
The Mavericks swept all nine sets in their three road victories over a span of just five days as they began RMAC play in similar form that they enjoyed in two early season non-conference tournaments, which saw the Mavs to 8-0. Last Friday (Sept. 15), the Mavericks were victorious at Western Colorado University as redshirt junior setter
Sabrina VanDeList surpassed the 3,000 career assist milestone while recording her fourth consecutive double-double. More on that later.
The Mavs then moved to Durango, claiming another 3-set sweep over Fort Lewis College on Saturday. Middle hitter
Savannah Spitzer had a dozen kills and a season-high seven blocks while hitting .476 in that victory.
The Mavs then returned home for a Monday practice before heading out to Salt Lake City on Tuesday morning in time for Tuesday evening's victory over Westminster. They took care of business in that 3-set sweep as
Sydney Leffler put down 13 kills without a hitting error on .591 hitting to lead a balanced attack that saw the Mavericks hit .392 as a team.
Complete recaps of all three matches can be found below:
Streak to continue, streak to end
No matter the result of Friday's match, one extensive streak will continue while another will end.
The Mavericks have started the season with 11 straight victories, their longest winning streak since winning their first 15 matches of the 2021 spring season, when the Mavs finished 15-1 during the COVID-delayed and abbreviated season en-route to that season's RMAC title. One of those wins came on Mar. 4 of that season when then then fourth-ranked Mavericks knocked off No. 3 MSU Denver in four sets at home.
The Mavs will also put an 11-match home-court winning streak on the line this weekend.
The Roadrunners have since rattled off 42 consecutive RMAC wins, winning their last four conference matches of that spring before going 18-0 in conference play during both the fall of 2021 and 2022 and winning their first two conference matches of this season.
Moving on up
The Mavericks moved up another spot to 11
th in this week's
American Volleyball Coaches Association/TARAFLEX NCAA Division II poll, released on Monday. The Mavs had been ranked 21
st in the preseason poll, 14
th in the Week No. 1 poll and 12
th last week in the No. 2 poll.
The current ranking is the Mavs' highest in-season ranking for a normal fall season since 2014, when they were ranked seventh on Nov. 17, before finishing eighth in the final poll after a 29-4 season and regional tournament championship match appearance. The Mavs were ranked tenth in the 2021 preseason poll and were ranked as high as second from a limited number of teams who played during the 2021 spring season, significantly impacted by COVID-related issues.
The Mavs were also ranked in all 12 of the regular season's weekly polls in 2022 before finishing 21
st in the final post-season poll. CMU was not ranked in the 2022 preseason poll, but did reach as high as No. 15 in the Week #10 poll on Oct. 31 of last year.
Including the 2022 post-season and 2023 pre-season polls, the Mavs have now been ranked amongst the nation's top 25 for the 17 straight polls.
In this week's poll, the Mavericks received 688 points in the voting of 47 AVCA member coaches from around the country, 69 more than a week ago and 241 more than they did just two weeks ago.
CMU continues to one of three RMAC teams in the top 25 with MSU Denver, now occupying the No. 8 spot after being ranked ninth a week ago. Regis also moved up into a tie for 16
th after sitting 18
th in last week's poll.
MSU Denverhas been ranked amongst the nation's top 10 in 30 consecutive polls although their No. 9 ranking last week was the lowest they had been since the second week of the 2021 season over 29 different editions of the poll.
The top three teams in this week's poll have all moved as well as Wayne State (Neb.) took over the top spot after avenging a Colorado Premier Challenge title match loss to now No. 2 Concordia-St. Paul in a massive Northern Sun Intercollegiate Conference match last Friday. Defending national champion West Texas A&M, which loss to Concordia in the semifinals of the Colorado Premier Challenge a week before is now ranked third as each of those teams have just one loss but are ranked just ahead of undefeated Tampa and Missouri-St. Louis.
Three other NSIC teams are also ranked in the top 10, a group that includes No. 6 St. Cloud State, no. 7 Minnesota Duluth and No. 9 Southwest Minnesota State. Nebraska-Kearney rounds out the top 10 of the poll.
Mines is amongst the others receiving votes category, a group that also includes Findlay, a team the Mavs defeated on the opening weekend of the season.
CMU's Undefeated start
The Mavs' 11-0 start is their best fall season start in at least the NCAA Division II era (1992-Present). The only better start in that time is the aforementioned 15-0 start in the spring of 2021.
The Mavs are one of five undefeated squads in all of NCAA Division II play as of Thursday morning. Chaminade, ranked 12th and just behind the Mavs in the AVCA poll, and No. 5 Missouri-St. Louis are both currently 12-0 while Walsh, receiving votes in the poll, is currently 10-0. Fourth-ranked Tampa sports an 8-0 record while Mercy of the East Coast Conference fell out of the undefeated group with a road loss at Adelphi on Wednesday night.
Player of the Week sweep times two
The Mavericks swept the Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference Player of the Week honors for the second time this season on Monday, with
Savannah Spitzer claiming her second consecutive offensive honor.
Sabrina VanDeList also won her second RMAC Setter of the Week honor of the young season while
Allison Waller won her second defensive honor.
The Mavs also swept the Sept. 4 honors when
Sydney Leffler, VanDeList and Waller claiming the plaudits. Leffler also went on to the win the AVCA/GameChanger NCAA Division II National Player of the Week honor.
The Mavs have now won seven of the nine total RMAC Player of the Week awards this season.
Spitzer now has four career RMAC Offensive Player of the Week awards while VanDeList has claimed 11 setter awards. Waller, just a sophomore, has won two defensive awards.
For a complete summary of what the Mavs accomplished in the Friday and Saturday wins at Western and Fort Lewis, please click here.
3K & Counting
Sabrina VanDeList became just the sixth Maverick setter in program-history to surpass the 3,000 career assist milestone, doing so in Friday's win over Western Colorado. She has since moved into the top five of program history.
VanDeList entered Friday's match with 2,976 career assists and recorded 36 in the milestone-reaching victory over the Mountaineers before adding 71 more in the last two victories, combined. The redshirt junior out of Severance, Colorado now has 3,083 career assists and ranks third in the rally-scoring era (2001-Present) of CMU's record book for career assists trailing only Jordan Moody (4,202) and Tara King (3,436) the last two Mavericks to reach the 3K milestone. King did that in 2010 while Moody, the program's all-time assists leader, reached the milestone during the early stages of the record-setting 2014 senior season that saw the Mavericks win the RMAC Regular Season and Tournament titles before going on to reach the regional final.
Only three other Mavericks have reached the 3K milestone. The others are Jeanie Sutter (4,138; 1995-98), Erin Fiack (3,385; 1999-2001) and Kelly Beer (3,082; 1986-89). VanDeList passed Beer on the final point of Tuesday's win at Westminster when she assisted Spitzer on the match-clinching kill.
VanDeList, who has 443 assists this season, is currently averaging a RMAC-leading 11.97 assists per set, which also ranks her second in all of Division II behind only Concordia-St. Paul's Teagan Starkey, who has amassed 13.05 assists per set this year.
Serving up the list
VanDeList is also steadily climbing up the Mavs' career charts for service aces, tallying a season-high three in Tuesday's win at Westminster while racking up six in the last three matches alone. VanDeList has now served at least one ace in each of the last six Maverick matches after accumulating just two total in the first five of the season.
She now has 127 career service aces, just one shy of matching Kelly Beer for eighth place on the Mavs' all-time charts. Drew Choules is the Maverick record holder with 153 career service aces during her 2004-07 career, a mark that is certainly in VanDeList's grasp of catching, considering her past serving success.
VanDeList led the RMAC with 53 aces last year, the Mavs' highest single-season total since Choules had 69 in 2005. She has a team-high 13 so far this season.
Top-attack
Largely thanks to VanDeList, the Mavericks lead the country in assists per set (14.22). They also rank fourth in the country and atop the RMAC in kills per set (14.84) through Wednesday night matches.
The Mavericks' offense has also been highly efficient, ranking first in the RMAC and sixth nationally for hitting percentage at .286.
Efficient Mavs
The Mavs' .286 team hitting percentage leads the RMAC by an impressive 25 points over Regis (.261) and has been propelled by three Mavs, who rank amongst the RMAC's top seven most efficient hitters. The Mavs also have two of the top three with graduate transfer right side
Emma Shaddix currently leading the conference at .419.
Savannah Spitzer is ranked third at .403 while sophomore
Aesha Alrashed is currently ranked seventh at .333.
Top Bosses Collide
Now in his 19
th season as the Mavs' head Coach,
Dave Fleming leads all active RMAC coaches with 354 career victories and will go against the next two winningest RMAC coaches this weekend. Fleming is 354-173 in his time at CMU, good for a .672 winning percentage and reached the 350-career win milestone on Sept. 8 after the Mavs win over Sioux Falls.
The Mavs recorded their seventh 20-win season under Fleming last fall, going 22-7, while qualifying for their second straight NCAA Tournament appearance. This came after the Mavs won the 2021 spring season RMAC title while going 15-1 overall during the COVID related delayed and abbreviated schedule.
The success is nothing new for Fleming, who has now led the Mavericks to nine NCAA Division II National Tournament berths, two Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference regular season titles (2014, 2021-Spring), two RMAC Tournament crowns (2014, 2018) and three RMAC West Division crowns (2005, 2009, 2010).
The Mavericks have had winning campaigns in all but one of his seasons and are a combined 237-90 (.725) in conference play under Fleming.
Mines Head Coach Jamie Magalei is second in the RMAC for career wins with 346 (346-114) in her 16 years atop the Oredigger program.
MSU Denver Coach Jenny Glenn, in her eighth year with the Roadrunners has 173 career wins (173-43) to rank third amongst the conference's 15 current head coaches and has the top winning percentage of active RMAC coaches at .801.
Home Sweet Home
With their four victories at the DoubleTree by Hilton Maverick Fall Classic two weeks ago, the Mavericks have now won 11 straight home matches dating back to Sept. 24, 2022.
The Mavs went 8-1 at home last year and have not lost more than a single home match in each of the previous five seasons, going 44-5 (.898) since the start of 2019. The Mavs are also 80-13 (.860) at home since the start of 2014.
CMU's last home loss came on Sept. 23 of last season to then national No. 2 MSU Denver. All three sets of that match were decided by the minimum 2-point margin.
The Mavs also went 9-1 at home in 2021, with their only loss coming to MSU Denver.
The home-court success is nothing new as the Mavs went 6-1 at home during the 2021 spring season. In the fall of 2019, the Mavs went 8-1 after going 9-1 in Brownson Arena during the 2018 campaign.
Mines was the only team to have come into Brownson Arena to win in the fall of 2019 and the spring of 2021.
The Mavs were also 9-1 at home in 2015 before posting 6-3 home-court records in both 2016 and 2017. CMU was also an impressive 15-1 in 2014 en-route to a RMAC Tournament Championship and NCAA South Central Regional final appearance and have had winning records at home in each of the last 11 completed seasons since and including 2012, going 95-22 (.812) since the start of 2012.
About MSU Denver (Friday – 6 p.m.)
The Roadrunners are currently ranked eighth in the nation and sport a 7-3 overall record. They are 2-0 in conference play after claiming home wins over Colorado Christian and Chadron State last weekend. They have won four straight matches since dropping three straight, which came after three wins to start the season.
All three of the Roadrunners' losses have come to teams currently ranked amongst the nation's top 20. They also have a win over now No. 23 Cal State Los Angeles and three others against teams receiving votes in the national poll on their resume. Two of their losses came via 16-14 fifth-set decisions.
The Roadrunners have won the last two RMAC regular season titles and have won RMAC-record 42 consecutive conference matches while posting a combined 84-11 overall record so far this decade. They were picked to win a third consecutive RMAC title in the league's preseason coaches' poll.
This year's Roadrunner squad currently ranks second in the RMAC for both kills (13.55/set) and opponent kills (10.92/set), the sign of a good overall squad on both sides of the net. They are also second in the RMAC for blocking (2.39/set) and have the top and second ranked active players from all of Division II in terms of career blocks on their roster.
Ember Canty has 397 career blocks to her credit and will set the Roadrunners' rally-scoring era record with her next rejection. Mikayla McClinton has 325 career blocks. Canty also leads the RMAC statistics in total blocks this season with 44 and ranks third with her 1.16 per set average. McClinton has 34 blocks and is seventh in per set average with 0.89.
Canty also has 56 kills and his hitting a solid .388 offensively.
Meanwhile, Riley Anderson, a Third Team AVCA All-American last year, ranks second in the RMAC behind only CMU's
Sydney Leffler in both total kills and kills per set. She has put down 150 (4.05/set) and is also second behind only Leffler in points per set (4.50).
Fellow outside hitter Rylee Hladky, a 2-time First Team AVCA All-American, is also averaging 2.79 kills per set but has played in just 28 of the Roadrunners' 38 sets. She has missed two matches completely, including last Saturday's win over Chadron State for undisclosed reasons.
Setter Amela Qershia leads the team with 17 service aces and ranks sixth in the RMAC with her 0.45/set average. She also has 229 assists (6.03/set) while splitting time with Delaney Eckhardt in Coach Jenny Glenn's 6-2 offensive attack.
Libero Abbie McCrimmon leads the team with 126 digs (3.32/set).
About the Colorado School of Mines (Saturday – 4 p.m.)
The Orediggers are currently 6-4 overall and 1-1 in RMAC play after splitting a pair of 5-set home matches last weekend. They bounced back from a 5-set loss to Chadron State on Friday with a Saturday night win over Colorado Christian and will play at Westminster this Friday before heading to Grand Junction to face the Mavs.
The have not won, nor lost, more than two matches in a row all season.
Veteran Rose Stuewe, a graduate student and outside hitter, leads the Orediggers with 135 kills and ranks fourth in the RMAC with her 3.46 per set average. Setter Presley Powell ranks second in the conference behind only CMU's VanDeList for total assists (419) and assists per set (10.74). Powell, who has replaced 4-time AVCA All-American Drew Stokes, also leads the team in service aces with 13 (0.33/set).
Defensively, Jada Price ranks sixth in the RMAC for digs (3.95/set) while Morgan McChesney has claimed a team-high 31 blocks while just sitting outside the RMAC's top ten blockers with her 0.86 per set average.
Series Histories
The Mavs have struggled in the all-time series with MSU Denver. The Roadrunners lead that series 35-11 and have won each of the last five meetings although the Mavericks are the last team to have beaten them in RMAC play, doing so on Mar. 4, 2021.
However, many of the recent meetings have been very close battles. The Roadrunners came from two sets down to defeat the Mavericks in the semifinal round of last year's NCAA Division II South Central Regional after winning all three sets of a Sept. 23, 2022 match-up in Grand Junction by the minimum 2-point margin. MSU Denver is 11-5 against the Mavs in Brownson Arena in the Division II era (1992-Present) history.
Jenny Glenn is 12-3 against the Mavs and
Dave Fleming in her coaching tenure. Fleming is 10-24 against the Roadrunners in his tenure with the Mavs.
The rivalry with Mines has also been intense with the Mavs now holding a 23-19 advantage since 1992, including an 11-7 home-court mark. The Mavs crushed Mines (25-17, 25-22, 25-11) in their only meeting last year on Oct. 29 in Grand Junction, a rare lop-sided decision that came as one of just four Maverick wins in the last 12 match-ups, six of which have been decided in five sets.
Fleming is 10-15 against the Orediggers in his time with the Mavs and is 7-14 against Magalei, his Oredigger counterpart.
Looking Ahead to Pod Play
The Mavericks will remain at home next weekend, hosting Western Colorado and Westminster in a "RMAC Regional Pod" next Thursday through Saturday. The Mavs will take on Western on Thursday, Sept. 28 at 6 p.m. and Westminster on Saturday, Sept. 30 at 4 p.m. In between, the Mountaineers and Griffins will play each other in Brownson Arena on Friday, Sept. 29 at 6 p.m.
The RMAC changed the schedule format for this season. Each of the 15 teams will play each other in a single 14-match round-robin to determine the conference standings and regular season title. In previous years, teams played 18 conference matches, facing four teams twice in conference play.
In place of those four matches, teams will now play two other nearby teams for a second in a regional pod, which are all being held next weekend. Those matches will not count in the conference standings but will still be in-region matches for NCAA Division II Tournament selection and overall record purposes.
Later in the season, the RMAC teams will play in a "RMAC Power Pod", each of which includes three teams. The groupings of teams were based on last year's conference standings and are designed to match teams of relative strength against each other to further aid possible NCAA Tournament selection resumes while again not effecting this year's conference standings. The Mavs finished third in 2022 and are in the top pod with MSU Denver and Regis, who finished first and second in last year's conference standings. MSU Denver will host that pod from Oct. 26-28 in the Auraria Event Center and the Mavs will get two play the Roadrunners and Rangers twice this season.
CMU hosts Regis in a conference match on Oct. 14.
