GUNNISON, Colo.— Colorado Mesa University senior Olivia Reed Thyne broke a 28-year old Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference women's basketball record for career rebounds as she and redshirt sophomore Mason Rowland led the nation's ninth-ranked and conference-leading Mavericks to their 14^th straight win, 70-57, at Western Colorado University on Tuesday night here in the Mountaineers' Paul W. Wright Gymnasium.
 
Reed Thyne, who broke CMU's career scoring record on Saturday in the Mavs' previous game, grabbed eight rebounds in Tuesday's win, raising her career total to 1,161.  In the process, she moved past New Mexico Highlands' Nicole Allman for the conference record.  Allman had 1,154 in her 1994-98 career with the Cowgirls.
 
Reed Thyne, who hails from Windsor, Colorado, had been named as the RMAC Player of the Year in the previous two seasons.
 
While setting the rebounding record, she also poured in 23 points in Tuesday's win as the Mavs built a 23-10 lead after the first quarter.  Reed Thyne had 12 points on 6-for-7 shooting in that quarter alone and tied and then surpassed the conference record in the first 2 ½ minutes of the game with a pair of defensive boards.
 
Rowland also finished with 23 points as she scored 14 in the second half as the Mountaineers held Reed Thyne to just four points in the final 20 minutes while slicing the deficit to just three points early in the fourth before the Mavs poured it on in the final minutes to claim the victory.
 
The Mavericks, who moved up a spot to ninth in the WBCA NCAA Division II Coaches' Poll, released earlier in the day, are now 17-1 overall and 7-0 in conference play, good for a 1 ½-game lead over Adams State and Black Hills State.
 
The Mountaineers fell to 6-7 overall and 4-3 in conference play with Tuesday's loss.
 
The Mavs have now won six straight games in the rivalry.
 
The Mavs went wire-to-wire in the win, jumping out to a 15-0 lead over the first 4:46.
 
They then had three separate 18-point leads in the second quarter and had a 42-28 advantage going into halftime.
 
The Mavs shot 53.1 percent (17-32) from the field in the first half but cooled off in the second, making just eight of 26 (30.8 percent) of their second half attempts to finish with a 43.1 percent (25-58) effort.
 
However, the Mavs did enough defensively, holding the Mountaineers to a 28.6 percent (4-14) effort in both the first and fourth quarters and to an overall 37.0 percent (20-54) effort.
They were also guilty of just five turnovers.
 
Meanwhile, Rowland finished 8-for-11 from the free throw line while scoring 12 points, including all four of her free throws in the fourth quarter alone.
 
Cayden King also chipped in to the win, coming off the Maverick bench to share game-high rebounding honors with Reed Thyne.  Brooke Eyre had four of the Mavs' 11 assists.
 
The Mountaineers finished the game with ten 3-pointers.  Alyssa Eckroth was 3-for-15 from beyond the arc and finished with 16 points.  Jayda Maves also made four triples on ten attempts and finished with 14.  Ivey Schmidt also had 14 points for the Mountaineers.
 
The Mavs, who have played three road games in six days, will now return home to play their next five, a stretch that begins on Thursday against the Westminster University Griffins (3-9, 0-6 RMAC).
 
Tip-off in the Mavs' Brownson Arena is at 5:30 p.m.