DENVER – MSU Denver won't have to dust off an old scouting report to prepare for its first-round match in the Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference volleyball tournament.
The dust hasn't had much time to settle.
The Roadrunners, 21-6 overall, finished second in the RMAC at 16-2. They'll play face seventh-seeded Black Hills State (12-14, 10-8) in a quarterfinal match at the Regency Athletic Complex at 7 p.m. Tuesday.
The teams just played on Nov. 9 (a 3-0 MSU Denver victory on Senior Night), so there will be only a nine-day gap between matches.
"It's basically like playing them back-to-back, so we'll make adjustments on how we played them the last time," Metropolitan State University of Denver coach
Jenny Glenn said. "It can be good to face a team that you're already familiar with."
The Roadrunners also swept Black Hills State in an Oct. 11 meeting in Spearfish, S.D.
In the meeting Nov. 9, MSU Denver rolled to a 25-14, 25-18, 25-16 win while holding the Yellow Jackets to a -.083 hitting percentage, the lowest by a Roadrunners opponent since 2011.
MSU Denver also racked up 15 blocks against Black Hills State on Nov. 9, the highest total of blocks for the program since getting 16 blocks – in a five-set match – against UCCS on Oct. 14, 2014.
"We got some runs to open things up, but they are a talented team with a lot of offensive threats," Glenn said. "We need to focus on ourselves and then do our best to get them out of system, which makes it easier to defend."
MSU Denver was all-systems-go last weekend, when it had back-to-back road matches at Chadron State. While knocking the Eagles out of RMAC Tournament contention, the Roadrunners had the best back-to-back hitting performances in program history since at least 2001, hitting .394 on Thursday and then .383 Friday.
While hitting a combined .389 for the weekend,
Avaline Lai led the way at .550 on 24 kills (with two errors in 40 attacks).
Ember Canty hit .526 with 10 kills and no errors in 19 attacks, and
Alyssa Kelling hit .444 with 13 kills and one error in 27 attacks.
Not only did the Roadrunners post back-to-back matches of over .300 hitting for the first time this season, they did it for the first time since Oct. 12 and 13 of 2018.
They hadn't hit .360 or better in consecutive matches since Sept. 24 (Colorado Christian) and 26 (Black Hills State) of 2011. MSU Denver has no record of ever hitting .383 or better in consecutive matches in statistics dating back to 2001.
After having 54 hitting errors in eight sets (6.8 per set) in back-to-back losses, the Roadrunners have had only 44 hitting errors in their last 12 sets (3.7 per set) while sweeping four opponents.
"We've been working on managing our errors, which is something that has gotten us into trouble in some matches," Glenn said. "It was great to see us make good, smart decisions with the ball from an offensive standpoint."
Tuesday's first-round winners advance to the tournament semifinals, set for Friday at the highest-remaining seed. Regis was the regular-season champion. The RMAC championship match is Saturday, with the winner earning the league's automatic berth into the eight-team NCAA Division II South Central Regional.
"It's go time," Glenn said. "It's postseason play, and this is what you train all year for. We're excited to get rolling."
