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The feel inside Brownson Arena Friday night was the feeling you would experience at a big time national tournament at a venue with NCAA stickers on the ground, and conference presidents in attendance. The feel on the court matched a big time event, while the play on the court matched one of the Mavericks regular season blowouts.
 
Friday night in Grand Junction Colorado the Colorado Mesa Mavericks (29-1) hosted the Ft. Lewis Skyhwaks (18-11). Friday night would go down in history, as it was the first time in school history that the women's basketball team won a regional playoff game as the Mavs handled the Skyhawks of Ft. Lewis 74-48.

“We didn't want to focus on Ft. Lewis, we wanted to just focus on an opponent and not get caught up in playing these guys for the fourth time” Head Coach Taylor Wagner said after the game Friday night. Mesa had beat Ft. Lewis the previous three times the schools had met earlier this season.
 
The Mavericks kicked things off with a bang as Taylor Rock drained a big three from the east side of the court. Kelsey Sigl followed suit with another three putting the Mavs up 6-3 to start. The Mavs would go on an early run, that by the first timeout called by Ft. Lewis would show the Mavs 10 points ahead of the Skyhawks.
 
The Mavs dug in and played an intense first half. At one time late in the first half, the Mavericks held a 17 point lead. The Mavs saw scoring contributions come from everywhere in the first half.
 
Katrina Selsor hit sister Sharaya with a beautiful back door pass for the layup which would put the Mavs 11 points ahead of the Skyhawks with five and a half minutes remaining in the first half.  Sharaya would toss up another layup seconds later stretching the Mavs lead.
 
Towards the end of the half the shots did begin to fall in Ft Lewis's favor, closing the gap as best they could, the Sky Hawks went to the locker room trailing CMU by 14 points.
 


The second half started the same way the first half did with a deep three from the east corner of the court off the hands with Taylor Rock.
 
From there the Mavericks did not look back. Double threat defender and scorer Sharaya Selsor trailed only her sister Katrina in points scored half way through the second half.
 
While the Maverick offense pulled away from the Skyhawks, the Maverick defense had just as much if not more to do with Friday nights domination of their fellow RMAC team. Both Sharaya Selsor and Kelsey Sigl had big time takeaways in the second half, ensuring the Maverick offense as many looks as possible. 
 
“You play great defense, and you'll be in every ball game” Coach Wagner said of his teams dual threat capability Friday night “And four of our girls scored in double figures. But I love defense, and defense is what we have talked about since day one”.
 
“I think our offense just runs off our defense” Senior Sharya Selsor said. “I feel like the days we get stops, are the days we shoot well”.
 
With a packed student section full of screaming Maverick fans behind them, the Mavericks made this all important game one of the regional tournament look more like one of their regular season blowouts. The Mavs watched the minutes click off the clock as they set history in becoming the first team in school history to win a regional play off game.
 
Katrina Selsor finished the game with 16 points and nine defensive rebounds. Kelsey Sigl once again led the Mavs in scoring finishing the night with 18 points, while Sharaya Selsor found herself in the middle of the scoring tally with a total of 14 points. Bruna Deichmann had a solid night putting up 12 points after seeing only 18 minutes of time on the floor.
 
First year CMU head coach Taylor Wagner was proud of his team, and their result but was already planning for Saturdays semi final game.
“In the sports world, you're only as good as your last game. And who ever wins tonight in this next game isn't going to care about our record, they wanna win the trophy just like we do. That's my focus right now” Coach Wagner said.
 
The Mavericks will play the winner of the Abilene Christian/Texas Permian Basin game in the semifinals Saturday night at 7:30 p.m.