DENVER, Colo. – Friday night's RMAC Tournament semifinal match between the #10-ranked Colorado School of Mines Volleyball team and Colorado Mesa needed all five sets, but the Orediggers prevailed and punched their ticket to the conference tournament's championship match.
Rose Stuewe was the star as she steamrolled her way to 20 kills while hitting .350 on the outside.
Julia Eiken,
Lindsey Jin and
Taylor Hicken made it a quartet of Orediggers touting double-digit kills. Eiken knocked down 12 kills and added six total blocks as well. Jin provided 12 kills and four digs. Hicken augmented her 10 kills by matching Eiken's blocks total with six.
Drew Stokes leaned into her role by dishing out 55 assists while racking up seven digs and five kills on a .556 attack percentage.
Elle Duis anchored it all in the back row by grinding out 21 digs and knocking down two service aces. Also notable were 11 digs from
Danielle Mullen and Amanda Doanis' resume featuring nine digs, six blocks and five kills.
Mines (25-3) produced its best defensive match of the year to get the win. The Orediggers blocked Colorado Mesa (21-16) a total of 12 times which is Mines' single-match high for the season. It held CMU to .168 on the attack after the Mavericks entered the match as the #13 hitting in the nation. For their own part, the Orediggers hit .295 on the attack and held the advantage in five of six major statistical categories. Most notable was the 12-4 margin on the block. With the victory, Mines extended its winning streak to eight matches.
HOW IT HAPPENED
An unseasonably warm fall day in the Denver metropolitan area led to gusty winds as the sun set on the capitol city. Inside the Auraria Event Center in the heart of Denver, wind and warmth was inconsequential thanks to engineers and modern technology. Speaking of engineers, the Orediggers had all systems go in their 25-11, set-one win. The home team on the scoreboard combined for three blocks, three aces and hit .464 as a team while holding Colorado Mesa to a negative attack percentage.
The Mavericks cracked the firewall in game two and flipped the script for a 25-17 win behind .484 hitting. Despite the second-set loss, Mines entered frame three with Stuewe and Hicken touting a combined 13 kills with Stuewe hitting .462 on the pin while Hicken was converting at .625 in the middle. That production provided a winning equation in and a 25-18 victory in game three as the Stuewe-Hicken duo accumulated eight more kills. Jin added an additional element to the formula with four kills of her own in set three which helped Mines take a 2-1 lead in the match. However, the conclusion was far from foregone.
Game four of the evening saw another massive recalculation by the visitors on the scoreboards. Even though the Orediggers used two early blocks to hand CMU a -1.000 hitting percentage early in the set, the Mavericks hit reset. The visitors on the scoreboard roared to a 25-22 win while parrying Mines' comeback effort to force a decisive fifth set. In the final frame, the Orediggers returned to a more solid theory and rode Stuewe's hand to an 11-1 lead. While Mesa attempted to recalculate once again, the batteries died on the Mavericks' TI-85 and Mines finished off the five-set thriller with Hicken hammering down the final kill.
NOTABLES
- Mines improved to 2-0 against Colorado Mesa this season after sweeping the Mavericks inside Lockridge Arena earlier this month.
- The Orediggers now own three consecutive wins over CMU. That run started in the semifinals of last spring's RMAC Tournament in Grand Junction.
- Mines is making its third straight trip to the RMAC Tournament final.
- Donais' six blocks on Friday night marked a career best for the senior who had previously posted five blocks on four occasions.
- Duis notched the 300th assist of her career with three against Colorado Mesa.
- Stuewe's 20 kills put her over 200 for the season.
- Stokes moved her season assists total to 1,170 which ranks #9 on Mines' all-time, single-season list. She already holds the #3 and #5 slots on that list.
- Since 2015, Mines is 16-2 in the RMAC Tournament.
- The Orediggers have not lost in the RMAC semifinals since 2018.
- Colorado Mesa's second-set win on Friday night snapped Mines' streak of sets won at 22. That is officially the longest run of consecutive set victories in program history.
- Head Coach Magalei is now 317-101 in her career at Colorado School of Mines including a mark of 22-9 in the RMAC Tournament.
WHAT'S NEXT
Mines will face the winner between top-seeded MSU Denver and fifth-seeded CSU Pueblo on Saturday night at 6 p.m. The match will be played at the Auraria Event Center on the campus of MSU Denver Live stats and video on the RMAC Network will be offered at
www.minesathletics.com. Masks are required regardless of vaccination status.
Fans can keep up with Mines volleyball on Twitter at @MinesVolleyball and on Instagram at @mines.volleyball. They can also keep up with Colorado School of Mines Athletics all year long on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram using the handle @MinesAthletics.
