COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. – The University of Colorado Colorado Springs volleyball team will play an RMAC Tournament semifinal match for the first time since 2007 when the third-seeded Mountain Lions (18-9) take on second-seeded and No. 23 nationally-ranked Colorado Mines (22-6) on Friday at 5 p.m. The match will take place at the Auraria Event Center on the campus of MSU Denver, the top seed in the tournament.
The first 100 UCCS students who show their ID card at the event center will receive free admission. A bus is available at no cost, but reservations must be made through the student's Mountain Lion Connect portal.
The Mountain Lions reached the semifinal with a 3-1 quarterfinal victory on Tuesday against Colorado Christian. The Cougars were No. 10 in the latest NCAA Division II South Central Region rankings released on Wednesday, but the ranking did not include Tuesday's result. UCCS has a 2-0 record against Colorado Christian this weekend, which should play into the Mountain Lions' favor as the selection committee reviews the final weekend of play before the selections are announced on Monday.
Colorado Mines needed five sets to defeat seventh-seeded Adams State on Tuesday night at home. The Orediggers are fourth in the latest regional rankings, and a win for UCCS on Friday will provide additional leverage for the Mountain Lions in the final ranking on Monday.
Natasha Habert, the RMAC Summit Award winner with the highest grade point average at the final site, will continue to improve on her program digs record of 540. She earned RMAC Honorable Mention awards earlier this week and is on pace to break the UCCS record of digs per set.
Habert's counterpart for Colorado Mines, Taryn Huber, was the RMAC Co-Defensive Player of the Year. She is averaging 5.33 digs per set and leads the Orediggers with 28 service aces.
Morgan Evans made 53 assists against the Cougars on Tuesday in her 10th 50-assist match of the season. She is 24 away from tying for fourth in single-season records and has 1,191 this season, and is on pace to finish fourth in assists per match with 10.93 per set. Her average would be the best in program history since the NCAA moved from 30 points to 25-point sets.
Alyssa Brinton is coming off her second 20-kill night of the season on Tuesday after she earned All-RMAC First Team honors earlier in the day. She has finished with double-digit kills in four of the last five matches and is seventh in the conference with 3.60 kills per set.
UCCS has won 18 matches this season, the most since 2012 and the sixth-most in program history. A win on Friday would be the most since 2009 and tie for fourth in record books.
The last time the Mountain Lions played in the semifinals, they advanced to the tournament championship match and received the program's only bid to the NCAA postseason. Each of the three conferences in the South Central Region – RMAC, Lone Star Conference and Heartland Conference – will receive an automatic bid with their individual conference tournament championships this weekend. The next five at-large teams will also advance, and the top seed will host the first three rounds of the national tournament. Angelo State entered the final weekend as the top team and MSU Denver is No. 2.
Charlie Botnick will provide live play-by-play and will preview the show exclusively on the UCCS Volleyball Facebook page before the match. Live video and stats will also be available with the coverage links on GoMountainLions.com.
