DENVER – Determined. Tough. Steadfast.
 
The MSU Denver women's basketball team put all those qualities on display Saturday in an impressive 69-58 victory over Black Hills State to wrap up the regular season.
 
"Black Hills is a tough, tough team," MSU Denver coach Tanya Haave said. "So to do that at home in our last game, it was great to see. It was a really good game for us, and we showed a lot of toughness."
 
MSU Denver (12-5 overall and 11-4 and tied for third in the Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference) won its fifth straight game and for the 11^th time in 13 games.
 
The Roadrunners used an 11-2 run to take a 33-21 lead with 2:58 left in the first half, and in many ways, that was it. MSU Denver never led by more than 12 points until the final four minutes, but it never let Black Hills State get any closer than seven the rest of the way.
 
"We just never let them get ahead," forward Morgan Lewis said. "They went on little runs, and that was fine. We were determined not to let them get more than two or three points and then we turned it around."
 
Lewis brought the toughness component Saturday, with 15 points while matching a career best of 14 rebounds. It was her second straight double-double and her fifth of the season.
 
"She was very tough, very determined, just rebounding and getting to the rim," Haave said.
 
Said Lewis, who now averages 8.9 rebounds per game: "I always going into a game thinking about rebounding. That's my thing and that's what I'm going to do. I guess I was just in all the right spots. All the boards were right there."
 
Meanwhile, the game matched two prime candidates for RMAC Player of the Year – MSU Denver's Allie Navarette (21.5 points, 8.8 rebounds coming into the game) and Black Hills State's Racquel Wientjes (19.9 points, 6.4 rebounds).
 
Navarette was at peak performance with 25 points on only eight field goal attempts – she made seven, including 4 for 4 from 3-point range while hitting 7 of 8 free throws, and she added 10 rebounds for her fourth straight double-double, her seventh of the year and 39^th of her career.
 
Navarette also had an ace up her sleeve in Tosjanae Bonds.
 
The Roadrunners' 5-foot-5 freshman guard spent the majority of the night guarding the 5-9 Wientjes and only added to her growing reputation as a defensive stopper. Even though Wientjes frequently isolated Bonds in the low post, she managed only six points on 3 of 8 shooting.
 
"Tosj did great," Lewis said. "The whole game they were saying, 'Mismatch. Mismatch.' And I kept thinking, 'That's fine, but you're not going to score.'"

Said Navarette: "That's all Tosj. She's one of the best defenders I've ever seen. She puts her heart into it and she can stop anyone."
 
In a career that has produced 1,767 points, never before had Navarette made more than three 3s in a game.
 
"A lot of time in the gym, a lot of late nights, a lot of time after practice, but most importantly that's my teammates finding me, people setting good screens for me and people feeding me," Navarette said. "I've been watching a lot of film, seeing teams play off me, and I've been hesitating on the 3 because I didn't feel as confident. So I got in the gym and started shooting a lot. Our whole team has been shooting extra. I knew I'd have that shot this game."
 
Said Lewis: "They took away her inside game a little bit, so she went out and hit the fricking 3 and it was awesome. She's a scorer, and she's going to score however she needs to score."
 
All wasn't perfect, though. Navarette's incredible streak of consecutive made free throws over the course of seven games came to an end at 37, on her final attempt. She's shooting 84.7 percent (111 of 131) for the season.
 
"I was so upset," Navarette said. "I think I just rushed it, shot it quick."
 
Despite tying for the third-best regular-season winning percentage in the RMAC, the vagaries of the league's point system that is being used to determine qualification and seeding for the league tournament has MSU Denver as the No. 5 seed, meaning a third straight first-round tournament game at Colorado Mesa on Tuesday.
 
Black Hills State (12-8, 12-8) is one of the two teams to beat MSU Denver since Dec. 12, earning a 69-61 home win on Jan. 29 when the Roadrunners played without Lewis and guard Maggie Justinak due to injury.
 
"We watched the film earlier today, and we just knew we were going to be a different team this time," Navarette said. "We had a lot of turnovers the first time, made a lot of defensive mistakes. So we knew if we could cut those down that we'd be right in it."