DENVER— The second-seeded Colorado Mesa University volleyball team was upset by No. 6 seed Colorado Christian University in the semifinal round of the Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference Volleyball Tournament on Friday night here in the Auraria Event Center.
 
The Mavericks, ranked 17^th in the national poll, fell to 23-5 overall as they lost in the semifinal round for the fifth straight year and for just the second time in the last 13 overall matches against the Cougars, who improved to 19-9 while reaching the RMAC Championship match for the first time in program history.
 
CMU had knocked the Cougars out of the RMAC Tournament in the quarterfinal round in each of the three previous years.
 
The Cougars will take on top-seed and tournament host MSU Denver on Saturday at 4 p.m. after the Roadrunners swept No. 4 seed Regis in the first semifinal.
 
The Mavericks were held to season-lows for both kills (36) and digs (25) in the 25-19, 25-19, 25-20 setback and will now await Monday evening's NCAA Division II Tournament Selection Show to finalize what they expect will be a fourth straight NCAA Tournament bid.
 
The Mavericks were ranked fourth in the regional rankings on Wednesday and are expected to receive one of the six at-large berths from the region, made up of the RMAC and Lone Star Conferences.  The winner of the RMAC and LSC Tournament finals will receive automatic berths into the 8-team regional.
 
West Texas A&M was ranked first in the latest regional rankings and will play third-ranked Angelo State in the LSC Tournament final.  MSU Denver is ranked second.  CCU was not in the top 10 this week but had been ranked tenth in the prior week.
 
The Cougars have now won five straight matches and used quick starts in the first and third sets and a strong second set finish to sweep the Mavs, who had not suffered a 3-set sweep until Friday.
 
Lilly Woods led the way with nine kills on .643 hitting and was involved in seven of the Cougars' nine blocks.  Abigail Newell led all players with ten kills but hit just .136 after committing seven errors.
 
Connelly Kilgore, who had played in just six matches and nine sets this season prior to Friday also recorded eight kills on .583 hitting as a major contributor.

Despite being swept, the Mavericks finished with a 36-35 advantage in total kills.  However, they were guilty of 22 hitting and eight serving errors and were held to a .147 team attack percentage.
 
CCU hit .293 as a team, including .310 and .308 marks in the first two sets.
 
Nicole Martin had eight kills on .500 hitting to lead the CMU offense while Sierra Hunt and Sydney Leffler finished with seven kills apiece.  Hunt also had three blocks.
 
Jordan Woods made the start in the libero position in place of injured Allison Waller and finished with eight digs and three of CMU's four service aces.

Setter Sabrina VanDeList had 34 assists for the Mavericks and is now just ten away from the 5,000 mark for her illustrious career.  She received the RMAC Setter of the Year and RMAC Summit Awards before Friday's match.
 
CCU jumped out to a 9-1 lead in the opening set as the Mavs struggled to gain any footing.  CMU would claw back to within in three at 15-12 but would get no closer as a service error, a Newell kill and a bad set doubled the Cougars advantage to six, which ended up being the margin of victory.
 
The second set was tied on five separate occasions including at 11 before the Cougars went on a 6-2 run to build a 17-13 lead forcing the Mavs into a timeout.
 
The Mavericks would score the next two points thanks to blocks from Hunt and Stormi Tadlock but could not overcome the deficit as the Cougars scored eight of the final 12 points to take a 2-0 overall advantage.
 
The Cougars then jumped out to a 6-1 third set lead before the Mavs would come back to tie the set at 13.
 
However, three straight Cougar points ended the rally as CCU was able to win the final set by five points.