DENVER— The Colorado Mesa University volleyball team jumped out to a 2-0 lead and pulled out a 5-set win over nationally-ranked Colorado School of Mines while advancing to the championship match of the Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference Tournament for the first time since 2018 thanks to a semifinal win over the Orediggers on Friday here at MSU Denver's Auraria Event Center.
The balanced Mavericks, who had lost in the semifinal round of the tournament in each of the past six years, have now won seven straight matches this year while improving to 23-5 overall.
They now have three separate 7-match winning streaks and are also 3-0 against nationally-ranked teams at the time of the match.
The Orediggers, now 24-4, saw their 17-match winning streak snapped as the Mavs were able to avenge two regular season defeats to Mines, who was tabbed 19
th in this week's AVCA-Taraflex NCAA Division II poll.
The third-seeded Mavs will take on tournament host and top-seeded MSU Denver in Saturday's championship tilt at 5 p.m. as the Roadrunners also edged No. 5 seed South Dakota Mines in five sets in the first semifinal of the marathon night.
Junior outside hitter
Ashlee Macias led four Maverick hitters in double-figures for kills and recorded her second straight RMAC Tournament double-double, finishing the night with 18 kills and 13 digs.
Fellow First Team All-RMAC pin hitters
Henley Madsen and
Molly Whalen added 17 kills while
Kaitlyn Hall chipped in ten.
Meanwhile, setter
Hallie Hewlett tallied a season-high 38 assists and added eight digs.
Defensively, freshman libero
Maya Grant tallied 26 digs while sophomore defensive specialist registered a season-high 17.
The Mavericks hit .312 as a team and are now a perfect 17-0 when they have hit .300 or better.
Mines hit .233 as Naomi Romslo recorded 19 kills on .300 hitting from the outside while RMAC Player of the Year Jenna McLaughlin recorded 16 kills on .412 hitting from the middle.
The Mavs finished with a big 79-61 advantage in total kills and had an 88-76 edge in digs.
The Mavericks hit .400 and .304 in the 25-16 and 25-18 first and second set victories but cooled to a .167 clip in the 25-20 third set defeat.
The Mavs then led for much of the fourth set and had a 20-15 cushion before the Orediggers roared back to tie the set at 21.
After another exchange of points, Macias put down a kill before serving one of the Mavs' five aces to give CMU a pair of match points at 24-22.
However, back-to-back hitting miscues, a Kaiya Gilber solo block and a Caroline Walden kill gave the Orediggers a 26-24 decision in the fourth to set up the decisive fifth set and race to 15.
The Mavs quickly seized the momentum as Macias had three kills in the first six rallies to help CMU build a 5-1 lead.
Mines then answered with a 4-1 run of their own to pull within 6-5 on a McLaughlin kill before a later 3-1 run put the Mavs up 12-7.
The Orediggers then received kills from Abbie O'Shay and Romslo to force a Maverick timeout at 12-9.
Mesa then came out, getting kills from Whalen, Macias and Madsen to close out the victory.
The Mavs hit .478 with 12 kills and just one error in the final set.
Macias had four kills in that final frame after putting down seven in the fourth set.
