DENVER – Sunday's win-or-stay-home MSU Denver men's soccer regular-season finale was a microcosm of the team's journey through the conference portion of the schedule.
 
A slow start, then signs of life. Then a tough setback. And, finally, the resolve required for a fantastic finish.
 
The Roadrunners rallied from deficits of 2-0 and 3-1, finally tied UCCS at 3-3 and then used Aidan Bates' second goal – the game-winner in the 74^th minute – to secure a 4-3 victory at the Assembly Athletic Complex that sends the squad in to the RMAC Tournament as the fifth seed.
 
"It was a slow start from us, obviously, to let them go up a couple of goals," Bates said. "But we needed to win this game, and we just dug in and never gave up. I think, if this game was earlier in the season and they go up two goals in the first half, maybe we don't have the resilience to fight back.
 
"But since we were on a four-game unbeaten streak, and we needed to win this, the confidence was high and we believed in ourselves the whole game."
 
MSU Denver trailed 2-0 after Alex Andersson's 11^th goal of the season at 33:52.
 
But Hernan Ibarra's bicycle-style kick over his head found its way to Aaron Biggerstaff, who flicked a header on to Bates just outside the top of the box. With three defenders between him and the goalkeeper, Bates took a touch to his left and – while still moving left – sent a low dribbler off his left foot between two defenders to the lower right corner of the goal at 38:38.
 
"I just took a touch into open space, got lucky and hit it," Bates said. "I'm lucky it found the corner."
 
Trailing 2-1 at halftime – and with UCCS also in a win-or-stay-home scenario – it still seemed like the odds were stacked against the Roadrunners.
 
"UCCS has a good team with some good attacking players," MSU Denver coach Nick Kirchhof said. "Part of the scout was to make sure those guys didn't get looks, but they did.
 
"But I absolutely loved our response. To get that goal right before halftime was huge. The talk at halftime was, 'Look, we've got 45 minutes. I don't care how it gets done and we don't get to choose how it gets done, but we've got to put ourselves in position to get going.' We were fighting for the next goal and then go from there."
 
But UCCS got the next goal, Andersson's 12^th, at 57:24.
 
"When we gave up another, it didn't faze us," Kirchhof said.
 
Said midfielder Noah Hannula: "We came out slow and that definitely put a dent into what we wanted to do. But we found something within us and turned it around. We knew this game was win or we're done. So we dug deep."
 
Midfielder Adan Perez, playing his second season with the Roadrunners, scored his first career goal just 66 seconds later, running onto a long pass from Max Hand and putting in a breakaway shot off the goal post.
 
The Hannula scored his third goal of the season – on Bryson Chiles' eighth assist -- to tie it at 67:35.
 
Jonas Votaw's long throw-in towards the front of the goal was headed out by a UCCS defender, but Chiles corralled it at the top of the box and tapped it over to Hannula, who then hit a low dribbling shot to the left corner.
 
Just like he planned it?
 
"I could say yes, if I wanted," Hannula said, smiling. "Yeah, I'll take that."
 
Said Kirchhof: "I'm so pleased to have Noah because he works his socks off every single game. You know he's going to give it his best effort every single time. The fact that he's able to contribute on the scoresheet – he was immense against CSU-Pueblo (in a critical tie Friday night). To have a center mid like Noah in your program, you're very lucky. We want his personality, his mentality, his work rate, to rub off on all the rest of the guys on the team."
 
Just six minutes later, the Roadrunners were in the lead.
 
Votaw sent a pass up the right side for Sam Funnell, who crossed it to Bates, who then scored on a header to the lower left corner.
 
"What a cross from Sam," said Bates, a transfer from Division I Wisconsin-Green Bay. "I had all the time in the world to pick out my spot. I can't be missing that one when it's put on a platter like that."
 
It was Bates' 10^th goal of the season, the most by an MSU Denver player since Josh Belfrage scored 12 in 2016.
 
"He's having a great season for us," Kirchhof said. "What I like is that he came in, and he's a top player but he's been just one of the guys the whole time – he hasn't tried to make himself separate from the team. And he enjoys that too – no one person is bigger than anyone else in our program. In one of my first talks with him, he said, 'I just want to score a ton of goals.' And I said, 'Perfect.'
 
"He's a threat, and he's one of the best strikers in the conference, and one of the best finishers in the conference."
 
And so now MSU Denver, whose chances seemed bleak after opening the conference season at 1-4, is 8-8-2 overall, finished the RMAC at 5-4-1, and earned the No. 5 seed for the tournament. The Roadrunners play at fourth-seeded CSU-Pueblo – the same team they tied 0-0 on Friday – in Thursday's first round.
 
"It's going to be a really good game," Hannula said. "We matched up really well with them the last time. I think we have all the confidence we need to go in there and try to get a win."