DENVER – The NCAA Division II baseball selection show was only a few minutes old, and there wasn't that much suspense since MSU Denver knew it had already qualified as the Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference Tournament champion.
But, when "MSU Denver" was listed on the televised bracket, there was nevertheless a huge roar at Sunday's team watch party.
That's what happens when players – some of them four years into the program – finally achieve what has long been the program's goal.
"To see it, it was kind of nuts," MSU Denver second baseman
Cody Schultz said. "We're going to the NCAA Tournament, for the first time in school history. We're the team that (coach Ryan) Strain said we were going to be."
MSU Denver (35-20) has earned the No. 5 seed for the South Central Regional and will play an opening-round game Thursday against fourth-seeded Texas A&M-Kingsville (31-18) in San Angelo, Texas. Those teams are two of three teams in a regional pod that includes top-seeded tournament host Angelo State (45-10).
While the players cheered, the selection show host talked about the Roadrunners as highlights played.
Nobody heard a thing.
"It was awesome to see our name up there," Strain said. "I don't know what they said about us – hopefully it was nice things – because our guys just erupted, which was really cool. I'm just happy for the guys."
The winner of the Angelo State pod moves on to a best-of-three series against the winner of a pod hosted by Colorado Mesa.
MSU Denver is coming off an upset win over Colorado Mesa on Saturday in the RMAC title game.
While MSU Denver and Colorado Mesa are plenty familiar with one another, the Roadrunners have never played Angelo State or Texas A&M-Kingsville. Ever.
"It's kind of a fresh start, because you do get tired of playing the same teams all the time," Strain said. "That's one of the things that, because Division II is so regionally based, you really play a lot of the same teams. We don't really get to play any teams from that (Lone Star) conference. So it's fun to get to play somebody else
"Going backl to Grand Junction would have been nice for our fans to come over, but I think it's fun to go somewhere different, and give our guys an opportunity to play at a place where they are perennially really good, just like Mesa."
Said Schultz: "They know nothing about us and we know nothing about them, so we can go into it not overthinking the kind of competition we're going to see. We'll just see who we're playing and we'll work with it. We know we have a chance to beat anybody."
