DURANGO, Colo. – Facing a 5-1 second-game deficit, after having already suffered a frustrating opening-game loss, MSU Denver flipped the script in a decisive way Sunday, putting up its two biggest innings of the season back-to-back in claiming a split of a doubleheader with Fort Lewis.
 
The Roadrunners scored 11 fifth-inning runs, then added eight more in the sixth for a 20-5 victory over the Skyhawks. MSU Denver had lost the first game 6-1.
 
"The first game was disappointing," Metropolitan State University of Denver coach Annie Van Wetzinga said. "We weren't sharp in any phase of the game and Fort Lewis took advantage of that. We put up a lot of hits (10) the first game, but that doesn't matter if we can't capitalize by pushing the runs across. 

"The beginning of the second game got off to a similar feeling, but luckily we were able to keep them in check offensively and finally busted open in a big way in the fifth."

The 20 runs are the most produced by an MSU Denver team since the program was revived in 2008. In 1990, the final season before an 18-year absence, MSU Denver defeated Colorado School of Mines 31-0 on April 18.
 
Meanwhile, MSU Denver hadn't scored more than six runs in any inning this season, but nearly doubled it by producing the program's biggest frame nine years.
 
The 11-inning outburst matched the biggest single inning for the Roadrunners since a 13-run second inning in a 14-2 win at Western New Mexico in the first game of a doubleheader on April 16, 2010. (The Roadrunners scored 11 runs in the second inning the following day in a 14-0 win over New Mexico Highlands, but hadn't scored more than 10 in a frame since.)
 
Megan Sansburn was 4-for-4 in the nightcap, while Laney Sheppard drove in four runs. Sansburn, Rebecca Gonzales and Alyssa Richter all had three RBIs.
 
Destinee Lopez worked 3 2/3 relief innings, allowing one run on six hits, to pick up the win.
 
Ashlee Kim was 5-for-8 with two RBIs on the day and went 9-for-16 (.563) with four RBIs and five runs for the weekend as MSU Denver (22-23 overall, 17-11 for fifth in the Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference) won three of four in the series against the Skyhawks (14-31, 9-23 for 11^th).
 
The big rally got rolling on Kim's RBI single. Then a three-run triple by Gonzales tied the game, and a two-run homer by Sheppard put MSU Denver ahead 7-5. But the Roadrunners were just getting started.
 
Koryna Wright homered. Then Kim added her second run-scoring single of the inning. Then Sansburn clubbed a two-run triple to make it 11-5 and scored on a wild pitch to cap the uprising.
 
In the sixth, Richter hit a two-run homer, while other highlights included run-scoring singles by Darby McGhee, Sansburn, Ari Valdez, Sheppard (two runs scored) and Richter.
 
MSU Denver had single-game season highs in runs, hits, RBIs (19), triples (two), homers (three), total bases (30), walks (eight).
 
In the opener, Kim, Sansburn and Gonzales – the top three hitters in the MSU Denver lineup – combined for seven of the team's 10 hits, but the Roadrunners couldn't push across a run until the seventh, on a Gonzales double.

Sansburn finished the weekend 8-for-13 (.615) to raise her average for the season to .345. Sheppard's four RBIs gave her nine for the weekend. She has a team-high eight homers and is third on the club with 29 RBIs. Gonzales, who shares the team lead with 17 doubles, drove in six for the weekend to give her 32 for the year, two behind McGhee's team-high total.