COLORADO SPRINGS - You never want to be the team that has to play a great team the game after it's had a poor performance. The Mountain Lions were that team Saturday night.

The Nebraska-Kearney Lopers looked to deserve every bit of the No. 4 national ranking attached to their name with a 3-0 (25-19, 25-15, 25-21) victory over the University of Colorado Colorado Springs at the Gallogly Events Center.

There was little chance that UCCS would catch the Lopers on an off night. UNK had lost its Friday match to heretofore unheralded Colorado School of Mines. The Lopers hadn't lost back-to-back, regular-season matches to Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference opponents since 1997.

That streak didn't end Saturday. Instead, the streak that ended was UCCS' seven-match string of consecutive wins.

Ashley Leitner had all but one of her match-high 16 kills in the final two sets to lead UNK (14-1, 4-1 RMAC). Ariel Krolikowski added 11 kills, while Liz McGowan had a match-high 18 digs. The Lopers' passing was precise, as setter Jenna Rouse had 44 assists on 52 kills by her team (84.6 percent).

UCCS, meanwhile, was often scrambling after being forced out of system. Only 70.3 percent of the Mountain Lions' kills were assisted by setter Cindy Bathelt, who also had six kills and six digs.

The Lopers also did a nice job neutralizing UCCS' potent middle blocker tandem of Nikki Kinzer and Megan Koop. The duo had just five kills combined in the first two sets with a hitting percentage of .100. They finished with nine kills and a .094 hitting mark.

Sonja Johnson and Alex Wood led UCCS (9-5, 4-1 RMAC) with nine and eight kills respectively. Skylar Lewandowski had a team-best eight digs.