CHADRON, Neb. -- November 12, 2016 -- Chadron State College head volleyball coach Riann Mullis concluded her first season at the helm of the CSC program on Saturday evening, dropping a three-set match (21-25, 16-25, 15-25) to Colorado School of Mines on Senior Night. CSC's three seniors - Alia Brennan, Rudy Leasau, and Stephanie Wilson - were honored in a pre-match ceremony. The Orediggers will advance to the Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference postseason tournament with a 21-6 (15-3 RMAC) record, while the Eagles finish 2016 at 7-20, and 6-12 in conference play.

"We played well this weekend," said Mullis. "We competed and didn't beat ourselves. We just played some of the best competition in the RMAC."

Colorado Mines, just as they had two weeks ago in Colorado, put together one of their best matches of the season against Chadron State. As a team they hit at a clip of .380, compared with .148 for the Eagles. They also outblocked the home team eight to two.

More importantly though, the Orediggers committed only 15 errors of any type in the three sets combined, a performance which any team would be hard-pressed to prevail against.

Leasau led both teams with 16 kills and hit for a .250 percentage, the team's best on the evening and one of her best single-match rates of the season. She added seven digs.

Outside hitter Gaby Varela added 11 kills.

Sophomore setter Madison Webb finished her solid season with 10.4 assists per set, up from a 9.19 average in 2015.

"If you look at the individual statistics this year," said Mullis, "you can see the progression we've made. I wish our overall win-loss record reflected the progress made by each of our players individually, but we've established a foundation and we're headed in the right direction."

"We look at Rudy Leasau, Gaby Varela, and Alia Brennan," she added, "and their individual stats like kills per set and blocks per set. You look at Madison Webb. I feel like our offense is dynamic and we're running a solid pass-hit attack. I think you can tell we're implementing the system we want to run. We're disciplined and we're trying to stay consistent in our foundation - the defense, the offense, the energy, and the unity. That, to me, is progression."

"We appreciate the seniors. We're going to miss those three tremendously. I think they ended pretty well on their senior night in how they all performed."