DENVER— The Colorado Mesa University volleyball team made program history on Saturday night as the Mavs defeated the No. 1 ranked team in the country while avenging their only 2024 season loss to a Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference foe, taking down the nation's top-ranked MSU Denver Roadrunners in four sets (25-16, 21-25, 25-20, 25-18) on Saturday afternoon here at the Auraria Event Center.
 
The Mavericks, ranked 16^th in the latest AVCA/TARAFLEX NCAA Division II Poll, have now won 11 straight matches since falling in four sets to the Roadrunners back on Sept. 27 and stopped MSU Denver's run of 14 straight wins while dropping the Roadrunners to 20-2 on the season.
 
The Mavs also defeated the Roadrunners for the first time in nine tries and knocked off a national poll No. 1 for the first time since joining Division II in 1992.
 
MSU Denver had been ranked second in the country at the time of the earlier meeting but had sat atop the AVCA poll for the past two weeks.
 
Saturday's match was the last of the Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference Power Pod, but did not count for the RMAC standings, which still sees MSU Denver atop the league at 10-0, just a match ahead of the Mavs, who are 9-1 in conference affairs. 
 
CMU had swept Regis on Friday night after MSU Denver swept the Rangers on Thursday to open the pod.
 
Maverick setter Sabrina VanDeList led the winning effort on Saturday, doing a little of everything statistically.  She had 36 assists and 14 digs to record her 49^th career double-double and also added three of CMU's season-high ten service aces.  She also had three blocks and perhaps most importantly, added a career-high seven kills on 12 attack attempts, good for a personal .583 attack percentage.
 
When not recording the kills herself, VanDeList led a balanced Maverick attack that saw five other hitters put down between six and ten kills.  Sophomore middle hitter Nicole Martin had ten on .474 hitting while Sierra Hunt put down ten as well from the right side.  Outside hitter Sydney Leffler also had nine kills while freshman outside Karsen Breeding and senior middle Stormi Tadlock combined for a dozen as each finished with six.
 
Meanwhile, junior libero Allison Waller tallied 17 digs while fifth-year senior defensive specialist Hahni Johnson added nine as the Mavs finished with a big 52-34 edge in total digs.  Johnson also had several long serving stints in what was CMU's first fall season win over the Roadrunners since the 2018 RMAC Tournament Championship match.
 
The Mavs, who defeated the then No. 3 ranked Roadrunners during the 2021 spring season for what had been their most recent win in the rivalry, also benefitted from MSU Denver miscues as the Roadrunners committed 24 attacking errors and ten service errors throughout the match.
 
MSU Denver, which led the country in hitting percentage coming into the Pod weekend, hit just .168 in the match as the Mavs hit .257 while posting a 50-45 advantage in total kills.
 
The Mavs improved to 22-0 in the opening set of matches this year as Hunt put down five kills in the opening frame that saw the Mavs scored the first six points of the set before going on to build a 20-10 lead on back-to-back Martin service aces after Leffler had recorded a pair of consecutive kills.
 
Going on to increase their lead to 24-12 on a Leffler service ace, the Mavs then watched the Roadrunners score four straight points before Hunt put the set away.
 
CMU hit .375 in the opening set and .345 in the second but could not quite keep pace with the Roadrunners who used a 3-0 run to break a 20-20 tie before closing out the set on an Annika Helf kill and block.  MSU Denver hit .400 in their second set win.  The set was tied on 16 separate occasions and included seven lead changes.
 
However, the Roadrunners cooled to a .029 hitting clip in the third set as they committed 11 hitting errors.
 
CMU jumped out to a 9-3 lead in the third set but saw the Roadrunners rally to tie it at 13 before a 9-1 Maverick run, which included seven Roadrunner errors, put CMU in front, 21-14.
 
The Mavs also led most of Set 4, extending what was a narrow 14-13 lead to 20-14 with a 6-1 spurt that featured a Johnson service ace and two more Roadrunner hitting errors.  The Mavs were then able to cruise to the set and overall victory as VanDeList, Martin and Tadlock all put down late kills before Tadlock and VanDeList blocked Roadrunner All-American Riley Anderson for the match-clinching point.
 
CMU, which now has two wins over top-5 ranked teams this season, will now return home to face New Mexico Highlands next Saturday at 4 p.m.  The Cowgirls are currently 5-17 overall and 2-8 in conference play.