GRAND JUNCTION, Colo. – National No. 1 Colorado Mesa defeated No. 19 MSU Denver 13-5 Friday night, knocking the second-seeded Roadrunners out of the Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference Tournament.
 
Colorado Mesa will play third-seeded UCCS in the championship round on Saturday, and the Mavericks need to win twice in order to claim the RMAC's automatic berth into the NCAA Division II Tournament's South Central Regional. UCCS needs to win only once to claim the tournament title.
 
MSU Denver dropped to 34-10 on the season, but came into the tournament as the region's No. 4 seed. Should Colorado Mesa win the RMAC title, and Angelo State (Texas) win the Lone Star Conference Tournament championship on Saturday, MSU Denver still has a chance to earn a spot in the four-team regional field.
 
If UCCS wins, or if Angelo State loses twice, the Roadrunners are most likely out. If Colorado Mesa and Angelo State both win, and assuming one at-large spot goes to West Texas A&M as expected, then the final spot would come down to MSU Denver and UCCS. The Roadrunners won three of four meetings between the teams during the season.
 
"We've had an unbelievable season, and we're one of the best teams in the country," MSU Denver coach Ryan Strain said. "We've lost 10 games, and five of them were to the No. 1 team in the country. And the other five we lost, we either had the game won and lost it in the last inning, or lost by a run or two. In 39 of our 44 games, we've played extremely well, and that's tough to do. We've played too well to not make the regional. We deserve to be there. Usually when you lose in a conference tournament, you're hugging one another and saying goodbye to the seniors. We're not doing that yet."
 
Colorado Mesa, upset earlier Friday by UCCS, scored a run in each of the first three innings to take a 5-0 lead, then scored three in the fifth, one in the sixth, three in the seventh and one in the eighth.
 
"We just couldn't get them stopped," Strain said. "We played so well in the first game (an earlier 7-5 win over CSU-Pueblo), had a really good team win, and then we turned around an hour-and-a-half later playing a team that doesn't lose very often that had just gotten beat, and they weren't in a good mood."
 
MSU Denver was unable to solve Colorado Mesa starter Trevin Reynolds, who took a shutout into the eighth inning and ultimately allowed one run on three hits while striking out 11 in eight innings.
 
The Roadrunners rallied for four runs in the ninth.
 
Cody Schultz led the MSU Denver offense, going 2-for-4 with an RBI, while Alex Gonzales added a pinch-hit, two-run double.
 
The NCAA Tournament field is scheduled to be announced Sunday at 8 p.m.