DALLAS— The Colorado Mesa University volleyball team got off to a hot start and pulled out a 31-29 second set win en route to a 3-set sweep over the nation's seventh-ranked University of Nebraska-Kearney Lopers in both teams' season-opener on Thursday afternoon here at the Dallas Classic in Dallas Baptist University's Burg Center.
The Mavericks also won the first and third sets by 25-17 margins as junior transfer
Ashlee Macias returned to her home state to lead all players with 16 kills on .371 hitting throughout the afternoon. The El Paso native earned Second Team All-Lone Star Conference honors while at UT Permian Basin in 2025 and finished the opening set with six kills on just nine swings.
She also tallied 17 digs to record her first double-double in a a CMU uniform.
Meanwhile, Maverick sophomore
Addie Ritterbush put down a career-high 13 kills on .444 hitting from the opposite side.
Defensively, freshman libero
Trinity Burchett had 21 digs while helping hold the Lopers to a .138 team attack percentage, less than half of the Mavs' .295 mark.
Sophomore setter
Ashlyn Tafoya finished with 22 assists and five digs while freshman
Ashlyn Persha had 16 assists, seven digs and two kills on just five attempts in her collegiate debut.
Henley Madsen (7) and
Karsen Breeding (6) also combined for 13 kills in the balanced offensive attack while
Jaycee Windorski made her first start of her 3-year Maverick career while finishing with four blocks.
Aesha Alrashed, CMU's leading blocker a year, also tallied four while adding four more kills on .571 hitting.
The victory over UNK was the Mavs' first since 2010 although the former Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference rivals had not played since 2016.
The Lopers, who were ranked seventh in the American Volleyball Coaches Association's Preseason Top 25 poll, had won their season-opener in 16 straight seasons prior to Thursday and were coming off a 30-4 season in 2025 while being tabbed as co-favorites in this year's Mid-America Intercollegiate Athletics Association Preseason Poll.
After giving up the first point of the match, the Mavericks rattled off four straight points, including two Macias aces, and never trailed in the opening set.
The Lopers then played much of the second set with the lead and had an 18-12 cushion before the Mavs pulled to within 23-21. They then committed a service error before a Persha dump kill and two Macias kills allowed the Mavs to fight off a trio of Loper set points and forge a 24-24 tie.
The Lopers also had another set point at 25-24, which the Mavs were able to stave off.
Later, the Mavs converted on their fifth set point opportunity as Macias recorded kills on each of the last two rallies, her ninth and tenth of the second set, which saw CMU record 24 kills as a team, nearly doubling UNK's 13.
The third set was tight in the first half and was tied at 13 before the Mavs went on a 9-1 run to break open the set while closing out the match on three more kills, two of which were from Macias sandwiching a Madsen kill.
The Mavericks will look to continue their hot start on Friday, playing the host DBU Patriots at 11:30 a.m. CDT (10:30 a.m. Mountain) and Mississippi Christian five hours later at 4:30 p.m. CDT (3:30 p.m. Mountain).
