GRAND JUNCTION, Colo.— Colorado Mesa University setter Sabrina VanDeList became the Mavericks' all-time career assists record holder and quarterbacked the Mavs to a .347 team attack percentage in a 3-set, 25-12, 26-24, 25-19 Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference win over Fort Lewis College on Saturday afternoon in Brownson Arena.
 
VanDeList, who less than 24 hours earlier became the Mavs' career service aces leader, tallied 39 assists, six digs and another ace in Saturday's win, moving past former Maverick great Jordyn Moody for the assists record late in the second set as the Mavericks took a 22-21 lead on an Erin Brown kill before pulling that set out in extra points while being much more dominant in the book-end sets.
 
VanDeList now has 4,220 career assists, 18 more than Moody's former mark of 4,202, that had stood for a decade since Moody helped lead the Mavericks to the Sweet 16 of the NCAA Tournament in her 2014 senior season. 
 
VanDeList,  who hails from Severance, Colorado also became just the 13^th Maverick in program history to reach the 1,000 career dig milestone, doing so in the first set after entering Saturday's match with 998.  She now has 1,004 and is the first Maverick to ever record more than 4,000 assists and 1,000 digs.
 
The nation's 17^th-ranked Mavericks, now 8-2 overall and 2-0 in RMAC play, finished the match with 49 kills as outside hitter Sydney Leffler continued to terrorize opposing defenses, recording 14 kills while swinging at an impressive .500 clip.  Middle blocker Nicole Martin also added 12 kills and was involved in six of CMU's season-high 13 blocks.  Fellow middle Stormi Tadlock also put down eight kills on .727 hitting. 
 
Right side Sierra Hunt also aided the balanced attack with eight kills and a career-high five blocks, including three solos, while Allison Waller also chipped in a match-high 14 digs in the victory.
 
Seven of the Mavericks' eight wins have come in straight sets.
 
The Skyhawks fell to 2-8 overall and to 0-2 on the season although JJ Curry put down 11 of their 29 total kills while hitting .409.  However, they hit just .099 as a team as the seven other Skyhawk hitters managed just 18 kills while committing the same number of attacking errors.
 
The Mavs hit .556 and were guilty of just one hitting error in the opening set as Leffler recorded kills on the first two rallies before finishing the set with seven on just 11 swings, good for a .636 attack percentage.  She had four other kills in an 8-0 Maverick spurt with Jordan Woods at the service line as CMU rolled to the 13-point win in the opening frame.
 
Despite being throttled in the opening set, the Skyhawks would hang in the match in the second, going on a 7-0 run of their own thanks in large part to four service aces from Ella Butler in that stretch alone.
 
The Skyhawks led 14-11 at that point before the Mavericks went on a run of their own to take a 18-17 lead.
 
The set was then tied at 18, 19, 20 and 21 before Brown's aforementioned kill put the Mavs ahead 22-21.
 
Curry then answered for the Skyhawks before Brown and Martin blocked FLC's Lauren Shea to put the Mavs up 23-22.  Leffler then recorded a kill to give the Mavs a pair of set points, which the Skyhawks fought off with a Curry kill and CMU hitting error.
 
However, Martin put the Mavs ahead 25-24 and tallied a service ace to close out the set.
 
The third set was also tied for much of the way before a 5-0 run featuring two kills by Hunt and another by Tadlock allowed the Mavs to open up some breathing room, 167-12.
 
The Skyhawks could get no closer than four points down the rest of the way as Brown impressively saved a ball, a moment before she and Martin recorded a crowd-pleasing block to set up a match-point.
 
Three plays later, Martin finished the match, fittingly off a VanDeList assist.
 
The Mavericks went 5-1 in their longest homestand of the year and will now prepare for a potential RMAC-title deciding showdown at MSU Denver next Friday in the Roadrunners' Auraria Event Center.  The Roadrunners came into a Saturday evening match at Chadron State with an 8-1 (1-0 RMAC) record and are ranked second in the latest national poll with another poll due out on Monday afternoon.
 
The Roadrunners have lost just one conference match while winning the last three RMAC regular season titles after the Mavericks went undefeated in conference play to win the 2021 spring RMAC crown, when VanDeList was a true freshman.