DENVER – Welcome to college softball Olivia Dampier.
 
The MSU Denver freshman homered in her first career at-bat and came within a double of hitting for the cycle while driving in four runs in her Roadrunners debut. Meanwhile, Laney Sheppard had her second career two-homer game as MSU Denver won the first game of a season-opening doubleheader against Humboldt State (Calif.) 15-7 Friday.
 
Humboldt State bounced back to win the second game 15-4. Both games were called after five innings due to the eight-run rule.
 
"We had scrimmages in the fall, but this was our first real game, and just being able to start that way was a confidence booster," Dampier said after hitting a two-ball, one-strike pitch out of the park to left center.
 
Dampier's homer was a three-run shot in the bottom of the first that helped the Roadrunners give an immediate answer after Humboldt State had struck for two in the top of the first.
 
Dampier opened the season batting third in the MSU Denver order and definitely looked the part. She won the Class 5A batting title as high school junior, hitting a remarkable .766. She "slumped" to .595 as a senior.
 
"She's a good player," Van Wetzinga said, laughing. "She's really mature for her age. She likes to learn and to be coached. She's very intenful. She's still going to have some freshman moments, and she's going to have to learn some stuff, but she has good maturity.
 
"She can play softball."
 
Though Dampier's blast didn't put the Roadrunners ahead to stay, it did show they had the ability to come from behind. They came back to tie it 4-4 in the third, then used a six-run fourth to overcome a 7-4 deficit.
 
"The first game was a good one to show us what we can do," Dampier said. "We know that we can fight and come back, and that's huge."
 
And her teammates weren't surprised by her early impact.
 
"That was amazing," Sheppard said of Dampier's first at-bat blast. "I was on deck jumping. That was exciting. She's a fantastic hitter. She shows up."
 
Sheppard, meanwhile, extended two streaks that carried over from last year – she now has a nine-game hitting streak and, perhaps more impressive, a concurrent nine-game RBI streak.
 
Her third-inning solo homer tied the game 4-4, then her three-run homer in the fourth put the Roadrunners ahead to stay at 9-7.
 
"My first at-bat (a first-inning strikeout), I was kind of anxious," Sheppard said. "But my next at-bat I just thought, 'Let's do this, let's do it for the team. Let's hit it really far.' I got up there, focused on the hand of the pitcher, and I hit it and it went sailing.
 
"Same approach on the next one. And I knew my teammates had my back. They were getting pretty loud and I heard them."
 
Both of Sheppard's shots were opposite-field blasts to right.
 
"That's just working on outside pitches at practice," said Sheppard, who set an MSU Denver freshman record with 13 homers last year.
 
Said Van Wetzinga: "That's a big day, and you're not always going to have that. I like that she kind of worked through some bad swings and not being as fluid. We've seen that she's more mature, more thoughtful with her approach at the plate, and she can make some adjustments within at-bats.
 
"It was nice to see her driving the ball to right, because she's probably going to see a lot of that (pitches on the outside corner.) She's a big, physical presence in the middle of the lineup and she's somebody we're relying on."
 
Dampier, meanwhile, may not have got all of it on her homer, as contact appeared to come a little closer to her fists than would be preferred.
 
But it didn't matter.
 
"I was a little early, a little over my front foot when I hit it," Dampier said. "I honestly thought it was going to get caught on the warning track. But it made it."
 
Dampier's father, Bob, hit 20 homers in two seasons as an MSU Denver baseball player from in 1989 and 1990. Olivia is off to a good start if she's trying to catch him.
 
"I'm more of a gap-to-gap hitter with speed," she said. "But if I ever beat him, I'll rub it in."
 
Sheppard had two hits and drove in a run in the second game to cap a 5-for-7, six-RBI day.
 
Redshirt freshman Kayla Banks, who got the pitching victory with 1 1/3 shutout innings in the opener, was 5-for-6 with a run driven in. Center fielder Megan Sansburn was 2-for-3 with five walks.
 
It was 3-2 again after the first inning of the second game, with Humboldt State leading this time. But the Roadrunners couldn't keep pace.
 
"We had so much energy the first game," Dampier said. "The second game, it's our goal that that was our worst game of the season. We want to have two games like the first tomorrow."
 
Said Van Wetzinga: "We talked about that if you want to be something at the end of the year you need to understand that you have to show up every game. I thought our focus, our energy, wasn't at the same level as it was for game one. It's hard to crawl out of a hole, but at the same time we did that in the first game."
 
MSU Denver is back in action at the Regency Athletic Complex with a noon doubleheader Saturday against Sioux Falls (S.D.).