GRAND JUNCTION, Colo.— Having won their last five matches, including three straight in 3-0 sweeps, the Colorado Mesa University volleyball team will look to continue their momentum in the Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference Tournament, which begins with Tuesday's quarterfinal round match-up with Fort Lewis College at 7 p.m. in Brownson Arena.
 
The Mavericks, 21-5 overall, finished in a tie for second place in the RMAC's final regular season standings at 12-2 and drew the third seed for this week's tournament.  FLC, has won three straight 5-set matches and moved up to claim the No. 6 seed with an 8-6 RMAC record.  The Skyhawks are 15-11 overall.
 
Tickets for Tuesday's match can be purchased through the RMAC's platform at the link above.
 
The match will be also be streamed on the RMAC Network.
 
Live statistics will also be available.
 
Last Times Out
 
The Mavericks recorded a pair of 3-0 sweeps last weekend dominating Black Hills State on Friday night before playing one of their best matches of the season in a sweep of fellow NCAA Tournament contenders South Dakota on Mines on Saturday afternoon.
 
The Mavericks hit .382 as a team in Friday's 25-9, 25-20, 25-15 win, their 20^th of the season, as outside hitters Molly Whalen and Ashlee Macias combined for 27 kills, two more than the Yellow Jackets had as a team.  The Mavs put down 45 kills and also had a big 9-4 advantage in blocks.  Whalen recorded 15 kills on .414 hitting while Macias recorded 12 on .346 hitting.

Meanwhile, Jaycee Windorski recorded six blocks while Maya Grant had 11 digs.

Macias and Whalen both had 12 kills in Saturday's 25-17, 26-24, 25-20 win as the Mavs hit .302, more than doubling up the Hardrockers' .144 effort.    Grant finished with 22 kills while Jaycee Windorski and Macy Wood, one of six Mavericks honored before the match in Senior Day festivities, both had five blocks.
 
Bracket Look
 
As mentioned earlier, the Mavericks are the No. 3 seed for this week's RMAC Tournament.  They finished in a tie for second place in the final RMAC standings at 12-2 but lost a tiebreaker to the Colorado School of Mines, which claimed the No. 2 seed.
 
Mines will host No. 7 seed Colorado Chrisitan, which lost a head-to-head to Fort Lewis after both teams finished 8-6 in the conference standings.  The winner of that match will play the winner of the Maverick/Skyhawk match-up in Friday's semifinals.
 
MSU Denver won the regular season title with a 13-1 conference record and tops that half of the bracket.  The Roadrunners' lone conference loss was to CMU.  The Roadrunners will host No. 8 seed Adams State in the quarterfinal round and would also host the rest of the RMAC Tournament if they are able to beat the Grizzlies, who went 7-7 in RMAC play, on Tuesday.
 
Meanwhile, UCCS earned the No. 4 seed with a 11-3 conference record while South Dakota Mines held on to the No. 5 seed with a 9-5 record after Colorado Christian was upset by Western Colorado on Saturday night.

The complete tournament schedule can be found on the RMAC's volleyball championship webpage.
 
Tournament Streaks
 
The Mavs have now qualified in 15 straight seasons, dating back to 2011, which is the second longest active streak in the conference (MSU Denver; 27, 2000-26)
 
Additionally, Austin Albers has now qualified as an RMAC Head Coach in all eight years of his tenure.  He led CSU Pueblo to the RMAC Tournament in all six of his seasons at CSU Pueblo from 2019-24 before taking over the Maverick program this season.
 
Semifinal Streak
 
The Mavericks will also be looking to extend their streak of RMAC Tournament quarterfinal wins and semifinal qualification streak to seven.  They have won their quarterfinal match-up in each of the past six seasons, defeating the Colorado School of Mines on the road last year after beating Westminster at home in 2024.  The Mavs had beat Colorado Christian three straight times from 2021-23 after defeating UCCS in the 2020-21 tournament, played in the spring of 2021.

20-20 Club Founder
 
Maverick Head Coach Austin Albers now also has a pair of career 20-win season at the NCAA Division II level after he and his CSU Pueblo ThunderWolves went 20-9 in what was his third of six seasons in Pueblo.
 
He is the first RMAC coach to have won 20 or more matches at two different institutions.

20 & 21
 
The Mavericks claimed their 20^th and 21^st wins of the season over the weekend.  They have now won 20 or more matches in 15 different seasons in their NCAA Division II membership era since and including 1992 and reached that milestone in four straight seasons from 2021-24 after going 15-1 in the abbreviated 2020-21 season, played in the spring due to COVID.
 
Impressive 22
 
Maverick libero Maya Grant tallied 22 digs in Saturday's win over South Dakota Mines, the highest total for any Maverick in a 3-set match since 2022 when Kerstin Layman had two such efforts en rote to the second of her two straight RMAC Defensive Player of the Year selections.
 
Back-to-back 500's
 
Maverick sophomore setter Ashlyn Tafoya recorded 42 assists over the weekend surpassed the 500 mark for the season.  She now has 506 assists and has become the first Maverick since CMU Hall of Honor Inductee Jordyn Moody (2011 & 2012) to record more than 500 assists in both her freshman and sophomore seasons.

Tafoya had 719 assists last year and now has 1,225.
 
She has played primarily in a 6-2 offensive scheme, which has been more common around the country in recent seasons.
 
Closing in on sixth straight
 
The Mavericks are closing in on what would be a sixth straight NCAA Tournament berth and continue to sit fourth in the latest NPI (National Power Index) Rankings, which have been released daily since Nov. 1.
 
Those rankings will eventually determine the at-large qualifications and seeding for the regional portion of the NCAA Tournament, which begins on Nov. 19.
 
The selection show will air on NCAA.com on Sunday at 8 p.m. MST.
 
The NPI rankings, which are entirely mathematical, replace the former regional rankings that were compiled on a somewhat subjective basis by a regional advisory committee under the oversight and criteria, established by the national committee. 
 
Eight teams, including the champions of the Lone Star Conference and Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference Tournaments, who both earn automatic qualification spots, will be selected for the regional tournament.
 
The NPI rankings will also determine the No. 1 through 8 seeding.
 
As of Monday's rankings, CMU has a 61.196 rating, which is the 28^th best score nationally.
 
Angelo State continues to lead the region at 67.232 while the Colorado School of Mines remained second and now has a 64.004 rating.  Dallas Baptist is just ahead of the Mavs at 61.924.
 
MSU Denver (60.362), UT Tyler (58.435), South Dakota Mines (55.837) and St. Edward's (55.607) and ranked fifth through eighth, respectively.
 
UCCS (55.607) and Texas A&M-Kingsville (53.872) round out the top ten while Fort Lewis is 11^th at 53.533.
 
To learn more about the NPI rating calculations, please visit this webpage: https://www.ncaa.org/championships/general-championship-resources/ncaa-power-index/
 
Top Ten Hitters
 
The Mavericks hit .392 and .302 as a team in their weekend wins and have raised their season-long team attacking percentage to .287, which leads the RMAC by six points.  The Mavs, who now rank seventh nationally in that category, have now hit above .300 in three straight and 15 total matches this season.  They are 15-0 in those matches.
 
The Mavs also have three of the top ten hitters in the RMAC statistics.  Jaycee Windorski and Addie Ritterbush are hitting .372 and .366 are ranked second and third, respectively.  Henley Madsen is ranked ninth at .297 while Molly Whalen his ranked just outside the top 10 in 12^th at .286.
 
No other RMAC team has more than two players in the top 15 of the RMAC statistics.
 
Home Sweet Home
 
As they did last weekend and hope to do so on Tuesday, the Mavs have consistently taken advantage of their home and supportive crowd in Brownson Arena.  The Mavs are now 11-1 at home this season heading into Tuesday's post-season match.
 
The Mavs have won three straight RMAC Tournament home matches in 2021, 2023 and 2024.
 
They went 7-2 at home last season and have posted an impressive 83-10 home record and .892 winning percentage since the start of 2018, losing no more than one home match in each of the previous seven seasons between 2018-24.
 
The Mavs won their last ten home matches of 2024 and were 12-1 at home that season.
 
The Mavs were 13-1 at home in 2023 and went 8-1 in 2022. 
 
The Mavs also went 9-1 at home in the fall of 2021.  The Mavs also went 6-1 at home during the 2021 spring season while winning the RMAC title.  In the fall of 2019, the Mavs went 8-1 after going 9-1 in Brownson Arena during the 2018 campaign.

The Mavs were also 9-1 at home in 2015 before posting 6-3 home-court records in both 2016 and 2017.  CMU was also an impressive 15-1 in 2014 en route to an RMAC Tournament Championship and NCAA South Central Regional final appearance and have had winning records at home in each of the last 15 seasons since and including 2012, going 134-27 (.832) since the start of that campaign.
 
They are 119-18 (.869) in their last 137 home matches since 2014.
 
In the Polls
 
The Mavericks are continuing to be in the others receiving votes category of last week's (Week No. 10) AVCA-Taraflex Division II poll, as they have been in the ten previous editions, including the preseason poll.
 
The new poll will be released on Monday afternoon.
 
The Mavericks have 26 points in the most recent poll, four more than a week earlier.
 
The Mavs are 2-0 against other nationally-ranked teams at the time of the match, defeating then seventh-ranked Nebraska-Kearney in the season-opener.
 
MSU Denver, who the Mavs beat on Sept. 18, when the Roadrunners were ranked 19^th, has fallen out of the top 25, but still has 16 points in the most recent poll.
 
The Colorado School of Mines moved up two more spots to 20^th in the latest poll and continues to be the only RMAC team in the current top 25.
 
Two other teams the Mavs have played this season are also receiving votes.  Those are Dallas Baptist (20) and Biola (16).  Both of those teams defeated the Mavs on the opening weekend of the season.
 
About the Coaching staff
 
Austin Albers is in his second season in charge of the Mavericks.  He is just the fifth coach in program history and the third in the last 42 years. 
 
In his first season with CMU (2025), Albers led the Mavericks to a 17-11 campaign and a fifth straight NCAA Tournament appearance.
 
The Mavs are now 38-16 (.704) in 54 matches with Albers at the helm and have a 1-1 record in the RMAC Tournament.
 
Albers is no stranger to the RMAC after having spent the six previous seasons (2019-24) at CSU Pueblo, where he led the ThunderWolves to a 93-61 (.604) record and RMAC Tournament appearances in all six campaigns.  The Pack also went to the NCAA Tournament in both 2021 and 2022.
 
Prior to that, he was the head coach at Laramie County Community College in Cheyenne, Wyoming, where he went 145-57 while leaving as the program's all-time win percentage leader (.718).  He was inducted into the LCCC Athletics Hall of Fame in 2025 and received the AVCA 30 under 30 award along with NJCAA Region IX and NJCAA District C Coach of the year honors.
 
Including this year's 19-5 record, Albers now has a 129-77 (.626) record at the 4-year level and surpassed the 100-win milestone in 2025.  He also eclipsed the 250 overall collegiate win milestone last year and now has a 274-134 (.672) overall collegiate coaching record.
 
His two assistants Bri Strong and Annemarie Chin also return in 2026.  Strong is entering her seventh season with the Mavs and her fourth as the program's top assistant.
 
Chin is in her second season with the Mavs and third with Albers after assisting him at CSU Pueblo.  She was then named as the Pack's interim head coach after CMU hired Albers in February, 2025, before re-uniting with Albers for last fall's campaign.
 
About the Skyhawks
 
Skyhawk senior outside hitter Alina Nunez leads the team with 357 kills and ranks third in the RMAC with her 3.54 per set average.  She also ranks fourth in the RMAC while averaging 3.93 total points per set and has been on a hot streak recording 15 or more kills in seven straight matches while also recording six double-doubles.
 
She set career-highs for kills (28) and digs (22) in Friday's 5-set win over Colorado Christian.
 
Fellow senior outside Jordan DeJesus, who has 236 kills (2.74/set) and Caroline Munson, who has 209 kills (2.09/set) while hitting .300 also provide punch to the Skyhawk offensive attack.  Munson leads the Skyhawk regulars with that hitting percentage, the seventh best mark in the conference.  DeJesus Is 14^th in the RMAC for kills per set.
 
Setter Addie Garn has 721 assists and is fourth in the RMAC for assists per set (7.14) and has recorded 40 or more assists in eight straight matches, eclipsing the 50 mark in four of them.
 
Libero Alyx Daugherty leads the RMAC by a considerable margin with 532 digs (5.27/set) to rank 18^th nationally.    She also leads the Skyhawks with 33 service aces (0.33/set).
 
Ellie Ames, who has 31 aces (0.33/set)  and Munson lead the team in blocking with 56 and 55, respectively.
 
The Skyhawks, under the direction of second year head coach Justin Wong, went 7-2 at home this season but were just 4-6 as the road team.  They also posted a 4-3 neutral site record.
 
They have lost nine straight RMAC Tournament matches since last winning a playoff on Nov. 11, 2005, their only post-season win of this century.
 
Exploring the Rivalry
 
The Mavericks have fared well against the Skyhawks and lead the series 48-13 during the NCAA Division II era, which began in 1992.  They Mavs are also 26-4 at home against the Skyhawks during that time and have won the last five home matches against FLC, including the Oct. 3 encounter this year.
 
Despite being Western Slope rivals, the Mavs and Skyhawks have not faced off in the RMAC Tournament, during the NCAA Division II era and last played a post-season match against each other in 1990 during the NAIA District VII playoffs.
 
Up Next
 
Should the Mavericks win on Tuesday, they would advance to the RMAC Tournament semifinals for the seventh consecutive season and would face either No. 2 seed Colorado School of Mines or No. 7 seed Colorado Christian on Friday.  The two Friday night semifinals and Saturday's championship match will be hosted by the highest remaining seed following the quarterfinal round.
 
If the Mavericks were to fall on Tuesday, they would await the NCAA Tournament selection show, which will air on NCAA.com at 8 p.m. MST on Sunday.