DENVER – Junior pitcher-outfielder Logan Soole's (Louisville, Colo./Monarch) dominating performance at the plate elevated the Metropolitan State University of Denver baseball team to a decisive 31-3 win over University of Mary at Regency Athletic Complex on Friday.

"He's just a really good player," MSU Denver coach Ryan Strain said. "He got hurt in the first game yesterday when he ran into the fence making a play, so at the trainer's suggestion (he was out of the lineup) for the second game, which was
difficult. When you have him today, you can see what the difference is just with him in the lineup.

Soole homered his first two at bats, then hit back-to-back doubles. He had a school-record tying eight runs in the first eight innings alone.

"Just the presence he gives and then be able to start off with two home runs, that kind of opened up the floodgates and let us get going a bit and kind of calmed everybody down," Strain said. "Our team goes the way he goes. He plays well, we usually play well, so it was good to see him get out there and do that today."

Soole was 4 for 6, also scored five runs and walked twice.

"It felt good," Soole said. "I'm just trying to work on my swing among a couple of things, but the coaches are working with me and obviously it paid off on the field."

MSU Denver approached single-game school records for runs (34), hits (they had 27, the record is 32), RBIs (28, the record is 32) and batters hit by pitches (five, the record is seven). The run total was the highest for MSU Denver since its record-setting 34-run outburst against Colorado Christian on March 10, 2010.

The Roadrunners, who improved to 6-5 overall, took Thursday's 7-0 shutout loss to Colorado Christian to heart, refocusing their efforts as a team against the Marauders. The result was more than compensating for yesterday's defeat, as the Roadrunners batted .519 (27 for 52) as a team.

Strain believed last night's loss was a huge impetus for the Roadrunners' victory that followed.

"We played horribly last night," Strain said. "We played pretty well the first game (against Mary), and then we had a break, came here last night and just played awful. In my 14 years, I told our guys that was the worst game I have coached, whether it being an assistant or head coach, so I think they had a little bit more motivation today to be ready to play and they came out here and swung the bats pretty well.

"They played like the team I thought they were capable of. I'm not sure what that was last night, but at least it was good to see them come back today."

MSU Denver scored at least one run in each of the first seven innings, including an 11-run second inning and five-run showings in the first, fifth and seventh innings.
 
"We knew we had to come out and play well," Soole said. "We kind of gave it up yesterday and that hurt. You never want to do that, but it's baseball. Anybody can win on any day, so we wanted to come back out, focus up, and just play a good game."

The Roadrunners' offensive onslaught started early when Soole slammed a three-run homer over the right-field fence to bring both junior infielder freshman infielder Zach Paschke (Highlands Ranch, Colo./Mountain Vista) and junior infielder Ty Lightley (Littleton, Colo./Dakota Ridge) home while giving MSU Denver a 3-0 lead in the first inning.

Lightley had a quality game himself, going 4 for 7 with two RBIs and a walk while scoring four times.

"It felt really good," Lightley said. "It was really good for us to come bounce back after that loss last night, so I was pretty happy to see everybody hitting. … Overall as a team, we just wanted to go out and score a lot of runs, especially (after) last night when we didn't score any."

Strain also gave credit to Lightley for stepping up when the opportunity presented itself.

"He's swinging the bat as well as anybody on the team," Strain said, "and he spent his first two years in junior college basically being considered a defensive shortstop. He's done really well, and that has given us a boost in the 9-hole for the majority of the season. And we moved him up to the 2-hole today, and he did a really nice job there too."

The Marauders broke the shutout in the second inning when senior infielder Daulton Sauce spiced an RBI single up the middle, scoring senior outfielder Jesus Payan to cut the Roadrunners' lead to 5-1.
Mary later capitalized on three errors in the seventh, but it only brought the score to 26-3.

Senior pitcher Taylor Petersen (Gilbert, Ariz./Highland) was credited with the win. The southpaw, who improved to 1-1, threw two innings in which he struck out three batters and walked three without allowing a run. Senior pitcher Colin Gudereit (0-1) took the loss and was responsible for 10 runs (8 earned), seven hits and a walk. Gudereit struck out three.

The Roadrunners will kick off Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference play with a four-game series when they host CSU-Pueblo (3-7) on Friday. The first pitch is set to be thrown at 3 p.m.