Dixie State won its Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference tournament debut match Tuesday night as the Trailblazers defeated Colorado-Colorado Springs, 3-1, in the quarterfinal round played inside the DSU SAC. The No. 2-seeded Blazers will now advance on to face No. 3 seed Colorado Mesa in the tournament semifinals Friday 5 p.m., in Golden, Colo.

The win, Dixie State's season-high eighth-straight overall, tied the program's NCAA-era record for single season victories as the Trailblazers improved to 22-4 overall.

DSU jumped out to a two-set lead in the match on the strength of a hard-fought 26-24 win in set one, followed by a 25-21 triumph in the second stanza. The Trailblazers looked as if they were primed for their 12^th sweep of the year as Dixie State held a 13-8 lead in set three after a Megan Treanor kill.

However the Mountain Lions (12-15) had other ideas as they mounted a furious rally, outscoring DSU 12-4 to bolt to a 20-17 advantage. Dixie State would answer with a Shannon Sorensen kill to cut the deficit to two, but UCCS would go on to score five of the final six points of the set to extend the match with a 25-19 win.

After both teams traded 5-0 runs to open the decisive fourth set, Dixie State used an 11-5 run to take a 16-10 lead. UCCS again rallied with five-straight points to pull to within 16-15, but that would be as close as the Mountain Lions would get as the Trailblazer defense forced three-straight UCCS hitting errors, while Treanor connected for back-to-back kills, to push the DSU lead to 22-15 and the Blazers never looked back from there as they closed the match with a 25-18 set win.

Treanor just missed her first triple-double of the year as she tallied a team-high 14 kills with 12 assists and nine digs. To'a Faleao-Baich added 11 kills, while Hannah Doonan and Lauren Gammell collected eight kills apiece. Dixie State hit .252 for the match and finished with 52 kills.

DSU's defense held UCCS to a .177 attack percentage and forced 26 Mountain Lion errors. Gammell, who was named RMAC Defensive Player of the Year earlier in the day, tallied a team-high five total blocks with two solo stops, while Treanor collected four block assists. DSU finished with 7.0 team blocks and 56 digs, including a match-high 18 digs from libero Sid Brandon.

In the other three RMAC quarterfinal matches, top-seed Colorado School of Mines upended No. 8 seed Fort Lewis, 3-1, while third-seeded Colorado Mesa swept No. 6 Colorado Christian, 3-0, and No. 4 seed MSU Denver outlasted No. 5 seed Regis, 3-1. Mines and MSUD will meet in the second semifinal match Friday at 7 p.m.