FORT COLLINS — They waited 21 days, but that didn’t put a damper on the celebration.

After capping the regular season with a four-set win over non-conference foe UC Davis (25-18, 25-18, 27-29, 25-18), No. 23 Colorado State finally got their hands on the Mountain West trophy the Rams had earned 21 days prior.

Actually, the wait felt much longer.

“We’ve been missing it for a year and half now, so it’s good to have it back with us,” senior Jasmine Hanna said.

The program celebrated a lot Saturday afternoon at Moby Arena, with five seniors playing their final home match. All of them were honored before the first serve, and the university played the Croatian national anthem for Sanja Cizmic and the Canadian anthem for Alexandra Poletto. Cizmic said she’s been asking them to, and she really appreciated the gesture, just not as much as having her mother, Maja, on hand.

Both of them were a bucket of tears during the prematch ceremony, leaving Cizmic to regroup in short order.

“Real quick. The game started, and I kinda settled and realized I still have a game to play, it’s not over yet,” Cizmic said. “It’s just getting calm and getting back into it. I was pretty bad.

“The last time (Maja) was here it was for freshman year and only for five or six days, so it was really awesome to have her here, especially to see me play for two games, and I loved it. I just love her and love her being here, because I really missed her.”

The Rams were impressive in winning the first two sets and seemed to be on their way to a sweep before UC Davis put up a fight in the third. The Rams had match point, but the Aggies won the final three points to extend the afternoon.

Mahalia White had a lot to do with that, posting a match-best 20 kills for the guests.

“I think we were put into sort of a false belief in the first two sets that what UC Davis was like, because they were significantly better in set three,” CSU coach Tom Hilbert said. “We competed well through parts of set three where we were having to sideout with them, get up to 27, 28, 29, but we didn’t point-score well. We stopped blocking, then we turn around and block extremely well in the fourth set, and that was certainly the difference that frustrated them.”

The Rams finished with 16 team blocks, but didn’t have a single one in the opening set. Kirstie Hillyer finished with 11 on the day (one solo), and Paulina Hougaard-Jensen and Katie Oleksak had five assists each.

Overall, the Rams hit .327 in the match as Oleksak closed with 44 assists, with Hanna pacing the team with 14 kills. Hougaard-Jensen, who had nine on her first nine swings, finished with 11.

Cizmic gave her mother plenty to cheer about, notching eight kills, two aces and four block assists.

While the Mountain West trophy came rather easily for the Rams (they were five games clear of Wyoming with a 17-1 conference mark), the fact they were pushed in their finale was a good prep for the upcoming NCAA Tournament.

The fact they were different was nice, too.

“Absolutely. I think what’s even better than that is it’s a team not in the Mountain West,” Hanna said. “It just helps playing a team we haven’t seen before. We get so used to playing in the Mountain West, we know everybody’s style, things like that. It was good playing them, whether they played well or not well. It was just good to see somebody new.”

The team will find out where it will be headed for tournament play when the bracket is announced Sunday at 7 p.m. The Rams put in a bid to host, but Hilbert doesn’t think it will be likely, nor did he want to fathom where they may end up.

“I don’t even want to guess. Every time I guess I’m wrong,” Hilbert said. “I’m 99.9 percent certain we won’t host, and then the question is whether they keep us in the West Region or they’re willing to move us out. We have to fly regardless, so we could go anywhere.”

Mike Brohard: 970-635-3633, mbrohard@reporter-herald.com and twitter.com/mbrohard