GRAND JUNCTION, Colo.— Sydney Leffler put down a match-high 17 kills while Emma Shaddix and Savannah Spitzer each recorded 11 to lead the Colorado Mesa University volleyball team to a bounce-back 25-14, 25-17, 19-25, 25-17, Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference win over the visiting Colorado School of Mines on Saturday afternoon here at Brownson Arena.
 
All three hit between .360 and .368 as setter Sabrina VanDeList tallied 43 assists while helping the Mavs hit .284 as a team, above their RMAC-leading .272 season average.
 
The nation's 11^th-ranked Mavs also recorded a season-high nine service aces and tallied eight blocks to improve to 12-1 overall and to 4-1 in RMAC play just 22 hours after falling in four sets to No. 8 MSU Denver on Friday evening.
 
Meanwhile, Mines, which was receiving votes in the latest national poll, fell to 6-6 overall and to 1-3 in RMAC play with their second 4-set loss of the weekend.
 
Mines' Rose Stuwe had 13 kills and hit .429 to lead the Orediggers.
 
CMU sophomore middle hitter Aesha Alrashed also contributed significantly with eight kills and five blocks while hitting .350.
 
However, Leffler stole the show as the RMAC kills leader put down seven in the final set alone, helping the Mavs jump out to an 11-2 lead before the Orediggers clawed back within 17-12 on three successive service aces from Renta Bolado Corona, their only ones of the match.
 
VanDeList then stopped the run with a dump kill before Riley Daugherty recorded back-to-back aces to help push the Mavericks across the finish line after a third-set wobble, when the Orediggers out-hit the Mavs, .394-.079 to force the fourth.
 
The Mavs hit well over .300 in each of the other three sets and finished the match with a 54-48 advantage in total kills.  They also had an 8-5 blocking advantage and a slight 48-47 edge in total digs as libero Alllison Waller recorded 14 while Daugherty had a season-high-matching 10.
 
The Mavs never trailed in the opening set and scored the first four points before VanDeList served on another 4-0 run to extend the Mavs' cushion to 16-9. 
 
The Orediggers would get no closer than five for the rest of that set as the Mavericks scored the final points of the frame.
 
The second set was tighter in the beginning but had a similar feel in the second half of it as the Mavs used kills from Shaddix and Spitzer to start a 4-0 run, which led to a 13-9 lead.
 
The Orediggers would later pull within 15-13 on a Stuewe kill off an overpass before the Mavs went on a 5-0 run of their own to extend the lead to seven before winning the set by eight after a Shaddix kill and back-to-back hitting Mines hitting errors.
 
The Orediggers then came from 12-11 down to take a 21-15 lead in the third set, which saw them record 16 kills while the Mavs committed half of their 16 total hitting errors.
 
However, CMU cleaned things up in the fourth, recording 16 kills of their own to put the match away while improving to 5-1 at home this season.
 
The Mavs will remain at home next week, hosting Western Colorado and Westminster in a RMAC Regional Pod, which will not count in the conference standings.  The Mavericks will take on Western at 6 p.m. on Thursday (Sept. 28) and Westminster next Saturday (Sept. 30) at 4 p.m.  The two visitors will square off against each other on Friday, Sept. 29.