DENVER – Six players with at least six kills, a season-best .355 hitting percentage, and a small dose of frustration.
 
Metropolitan State University of Denver cruised to a 3-0 volleyball victory Friday night over New Mexico Highlands in relatively impressive fashion, but there were just enough mistakes on Hispanic Heritage Night to keep the "Correcaminos" motivated moving forward.
 
"It wasn't our cleanest, but we'll take a win any time," Taylor Duryea (Logan, Utah/Sky View) said. "We really just have to focus on not getting in lulls against any team. Whether it's practice or games, we have to bring our best. There were times where we were complacent and weren't as sharp as we can be.
 
"We've been having great practices and we want to transfer that over all the time -- not just against our big rivals, we have to play that way all the time to be great."
 
MSU Denver started off great indeed, jumping out to a 6-0 lead. After that, the 25-18, 25-16, 25-18 result seemed inevitable.
 
Duryea had 12 kills and hit .375. Kayla White (Montgomery, Ala./Montgomery Academy) had eight kills and hit a season-best .538. Santaisha Sturges (Parker, Colo./Regis Jesuit) had seven kills and hit .462. Alyssa Kelling (Merton, Wis./Arrowhead) had seven kills and hit .357. Avaline Lai (Boulder, Colo./Fairview) had six kills and hit .364. Stephanie Laraway (Lakewood, Colo./Lakewood) had six kills.
 
"I liked that we made some good adjustments as the match wore on," MSU Denver coach Jenny Glenn said. "The things that scored against us in the first set weren't scoring against us later on. Our scouting report was accurate. We didn't execute it well early in the match, but as the match wore on we made the adjustments.
 
"This team was a good matchup for us – some of their weaknesses are our strengths."
 
Said White: That wasn't our best volleyball. We're working really hard in practice. But a dub (win) is a dub, and we're going to use it as a lesson and play better tomorrow."
 
The Roadrunners face Colorado State University-Pueblo in Saturday's 4 p.m. Dig Pink Cancer Awareness Match, with free admission to those wearing pink. The Roadrunners Athletics Hall of Fame banquet, with a separate $25 admission, follows the match at 7 p.m.
 
MSU Denver (13-6 overall, 9-2 and fifth in the Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference) hit .500 in the first set, but did struggle with some unforced errors throughout the match.
 
"We live and die by our serve sometimes, so on nights they are on it helps us a lot and on off nights we have to find a way to battle through," Glenn said. "It didn't affect us tonight, but it could in the future. We've got to clean that up a little bit."
 
The Roadrunners finished with 26 errors – 15 hitting, seven serving and four others – to account for half of Highlands' points.
 
"Some of the errors sometimes come from running different plays, or just different things that we're trying," Duryea said. "So they're not always bad. But our big focus is we don't worry as much about what they're doing. We do our scouting report, but if we're doing what we can do, we can beat any team."
 
Mikaela Kubiak (Kalamazoo, Mich./Portage Central) set a career-high 27 assists for MSU Denver, which earned its fifth straight win and fourth straight sweep.

Camryn Nelson led Highlands (6-14, 4-8) with six kills. The Cowgirls hit .177.
 
Particularly dominant were MSU Denver's right-side hitters: White, Lai and Alexis Benda (Las Cruces, N.M./Oñate). Benda replaced Lai for the third set and didn't miss a beat, recording two kills and three digs.
 
"We are incorporating a lot of things," Duryea said. "Our right sides were awesome – all three of them. For all three of them to come in and hit really well is a huge asset for us."