GRAND JUNCTION, Colo.— After going 3-0 on a 5-day road trip and extending their season-long winning streak to eight straight matches, the nation's 17
th-ranked Colorado Mesa University Maverick volleyball team has returned home to prepare for Saturday's match against Colorado Christian University, the Mavs' lone match-up of the weekend.
First serve in Brownson Arena will be at 4 p.m.
The Mavericks are now 16-3 overall and stand solidly in second place in the Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference standings with an 8-1 mark, just a half-match behind national poll No. 1 MSU Denver, which is currently 8-0 in the RMAC standings.
CCU will enter a Friday night match at Westminster in sixth place in the RMAC standings with a 5-3 conference record. The Cougars are 11-7 overall and have won two of their last three.
Tickets for Saturday's match are available at
www.cmumavericks.com/tickets and the match
will be streamed on the RMAC Network.
Live statistics will also be available here.
Last Time Out
The Mavericks won 4-set matches at UCCS and Regis last Friday and Saturday over the weekend before heading to finish off the road trip sweep with a 3-set sweep at Chadron State on Tuesday night.
Sydney Leffler recorded 49 kills throughout the trip while
Nicole Martin put down another 40 while hitting .466.
Setter
Sabrina VanDeList also averaged 12.45 assists per set to increase her season long average to 12.31. She also tallied seven service aces and 30 digs.
Stormi Tadlock recorded 10 blocks to lead the Mavs at the net while
Allison Waller had 37 digs to pace the Maverick back row, two more than Leffler.
Full recaps of all three matches can be found below.
Player of the Week
Maverick senior outside hitter
Sydney Leffler was named as the RMAC's Offensive Player of the Week on Monday after recording 39 kills in the weekend wins over UCCS and Regis, including 21 in the victory over the Rangers.
The award is the first of her senior and the sixth of her impressive career. She and teammate
Sierra Hunt have now won the Offensive award in back-to-back weeks.
Into the top five
In the win over Chadron State on Tuesday,
Sydney Leffler recorded ten kills and moved two past Pam Glenn and in to the top five of CMU's all-time career kills charts. Leffler now has 1,391 career kills, two more than Glenn had in her 1992-95 career.
Leffler came into her season ranked ninth in CMU history with 1,109 kills and has moved past Heather Legge (1,206), Jeanette Crosbie (1,227), Alisan Tompkins (1,239) and now Glenn.
Drew Choules, is Leffler's next target. Choules had 1,440 career kills in her 2004-07 career and ranks fourth in program history. Amy Miller (2,228), Nikki Kneuer (Green) (1,668) and Stacey Vogel (1,583) are the top three Mavericks in career kills.
Nation's top killers
As of Wednesday, the Mavericks lead the NCAA Division II statistics in kills per set, averaging 15.18 per frame. They also rank second in assists per set at 14.19.
Nebraska-Kearney ranks second in the country in kills per set at 14.92 while St. Cloud is third at 14.91. UNK is the only team ahead of the Mavs in assists per set with a 14.26 average.
The Veteran Court boss
Now in his 20
th year in charge of the Maverick program, Head Coach
Dave Fleming is the longest-serving and winningest active head coach in the RMAC, racking up 383 overall career wins and a .679 winning percentage (383-181) in his tenure.
He and his Maverick squads have fared even better in conference play, as Fleming now has an impressive .732 winning percentage (254-93) when coaching conference matches.
Fleming recently claimed his 250
th career RMAC win at home against CSU Pueblo.
He is just one of six RMAC Coaches to have 300 or more overall wins while coaching in the league.
Fleming has been named as the RMAC Coach of the Year four times and has guided the program to four total RMAC regular season and tournament titles and to three other RMAC West Division crowns. They have had winning campaigns in 18 of his 19 previous seasons and have reached 20 wins eight times, including in each of the last three seasons after going 15-1 to win the RMAC title in the spring of 2021, an abbreviated season.
The Mavs also have reached the NCAA Tournament ten times under Fleming, including in each of the last three.
Continued dominance
Tuesday's win over Chadron State was the Mavericks' 30
th straight in the rivalry. The Eagles last win over the Mavericks, when CMU was known as Mesa State College, was back in 1995.
The Mavericks had also claimed what was their eighth straight victory over UCCS last Friday. The Mavs have also won 12 of the last 13 and 15 of the last 17 matches against the Mountain Lions since 2008.
Haunted House, no more
The Mavericks were also able to get out of what has been a scary building in recent times, when they defeated the Regis Rangers in the Regis Fieldhouse on Saturday afternoon. That 4-set victory was CMU's first true road win over the Rangers in 15 years since last defeating them in the Regis Fieldhouse in 2009.
October Success
If the Mavericks can win Saturday's match against Colorado Christian, they would finish the month of October with a perfect 8-0 record. The Mavs were able to accomplish that feet in 2022, going 9-0 in October. They were 6-2 in that month last season and were 9-1 in the month of October during 2021. The Mavs are currently a combined 31-3 in the month of October this decade.
Double-Doubles
Sydney Leffler recorded double-doubles for kills and digs in all three matches of the Mavs' recent road trip and now has six double-doubles in the Mavs' current 8-match winning streak. She has seven overall but still trails setter
Sabrina VanDeList, who has tallied eight between assists and digs this campaign, for the team lead. VanDeList recorded her fifth consecutive double-double in last Friday's win at UCCS and finished with eight digs in the wins over Regis and Chadron State.
VanDeList has now registered 47 double-doubles in her career. Leffler had not had a double-double prior to this season.
Quick Starters
In addition to continuing their overall winning streak last week, the Mavericks continued another winning streak of sorts as they have won the first set in all 19 of their matches this season.
CMU has gone on to sweep nine matches this year and have won six other times in four sets. They have lost the second, third and fourth sets after taking the lead in in their three overall losses.
Home Sweet Home
The Mavericks have consistently taken advantage of their home and supportive crowd in Brownson Arena, something they will look to continue on Saturday. With their two most recent home wins over CSU Pueblo and Adams State, the Mavs raised their 2024 home record to 8-1. The Mavs have not lost more than a single home match in each of the previous six seasons, a streak they will try to extend this year.
The Mavs were 13-1 at home last year and went 8-1 in 2022. After last weekend, the Mavericks are now 61-7 (.897) since the start of 2018 at home. The Mavs are also 97-15 (.866) in their last 112 home matches since the start of 2014.
The Mavs also went 9-1 at home in 2021, with their only loss coming to MSU Denver, which has been the only conference team to beat CMU at home in the past three seasons.
The Mavs also 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.
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 13 seasons since and including 2012, going 112-24 (.824) since the start of 2012.
Including Saturday, the Mavs have three remaining regular season home matches and are currently in position to at least host the first round of the RMAC Tournament.
In the polls
The Mavericks remained in the No. 17 spot of the
latest American Volleyball Coaches Association/TARAFLEX NCAA Division II Coaches' Poll, which was released on Monday afternoon.
CMU has now been ranked amongst the nation's top 25 in 35 consecutive polls since the first regular season poll of the 2022 campaign. They have hovered between No. 15-18 in all eight editions of the poll this season, including the preseason poll.
MSU Denver, now 17-1 overall after picking up a Tuesday night win over the Colorado School of Mines, is the new No. 1 team in the poll. The Roadrunners received 31 of 47 first place votes and topped the poll with 1,154 points after sitting in the No. 2 spot in previous polls after the Tampa Spartans dropped their first match and to fourth in the poll. They still picked up three first place votes.
Ferris State, the only undefeated team in the country at 20-0, moved up two spots to second in the poll while St. Cloud State also moved up two spots to third. Cal Poly Pomona, which is also garnering three first place votes also moved up a spot in to the top five.
Nebraska-Kearney, Wayne State, West Texas A&M, Chaminade and Central Oklahoma make up the second five.
Concordia-St. Paul (14-4), a team the Mavericks defeated on the opening weekend of the season, is now ranked 11
th while Angelo State (17-2), a team that beat the Mavericks a week later dropped a spot to 15
th.
About the Cougars
The Cougars are currently 11-7 overall and have a 5-3 RMAC record. They will play at Westminster on Friday night before heading to Grand Junction for Saturday's match.
Senior setter Izzy Jones is second to CMU's
Sabrina VanDeList in the RMAC statistics for assists per set, averaging 11.34 and runs a balanced Cougar attack. Five different Cougar hitters are averaging more than two kills per set, including team leader Abby Newell, who has put down 191, good for a 3.47 per set average that ranks the senior outside hitter seventh in the RMAC statistics.
Junior middle hitter Renee Phillips is right behind with 174 kills (2.76/set) and is hitting .357 to rank second in the RMAC for attack percentage. Lilly Woods sits third in that category at .351 and has recorded 123 kills to rank fifth on the team. Suzanna Conner has also contributed 155 kills (2.50/set) while Abby Breeding has put down 124 (2.88/set) despite not playing since Oct. 1.
She and Megan McNitt, who has 91 kills and a 2.68 per set average, have both played in 13 of the Cougars matches so far.
Defensively, Shelby Hernandez ranks second in the RMAC for digging, recording 304 in total to average 4.75 per set. Woods is also second in the conference for blocking, tallying 79 (1.25/set) for the Cougs thus far.
Series Histories
The Mavericks hold a 27-15 lead in the series with CCU during their NCAA Division II era (1992-Present) and have been even more successful at home, winning 14 of 20 matches during that time. The Mavs have also won eight straight home matches against the Cougars, who last won in Brownson Arena back in the 2013 RMAC Tournament quarterfinals.
The Mavs have won 10 out of the last 11 meetings, although the Cougars won the regular season match-up between the teams last year, winning a 5-set thriller in Lakewood on Oct. 21.
The Mavs then swept the Cougars at home in the first round of the RMAC Tournament to end CCU's season.
Maverick Head Coach
Dave Fleming is 18-7 against the Cougars in his time at CMU and is 10-2 against Cougar counterpart Bobby Blanken, in his eighth season at the helm of the CCU program.
Up Next
The Mavericks will take a break from official conference matches but will play against RMAC opponents Regis and MSU Denver during next weekend's RMAC Power Pod in Denver. Those matches were scheduled based on last year's RMAC conference standings but will not count in the RMAC standings.
