SAN ANGELO, Texas – It's one thing to be happy to be there.
 
It's another to be ready to stick around.
 
The MSU Denver baseball team will play its first-ever NCAA Tournament game on Thursday in the South Central Regional. The Roadrunners (35-20) face Texas A&M-Kingsville (31-18) in a 1:30 p.m. MDT game in San Angelo, Texas.
 
"I think they've been excited about it, but now it's back to the point where, 'It's time to go play baseball again,'" MSU Denver coach Ryan Strain said. "If we want to keep playing, we have to play well and win. We're happy to be the first team to do it, because making an NCAA regional is a big deal. I told them they had a day or two to enjoy it, but that day or two is over now."
 
The trip to the tournament is the culmination of years of building that finally came to fruition.
 
In the Auraria Event Center on the MSU Denver campus, each program has a banner listing the years of its conference championships and NCAA Tournament appearances. Until now, all the baseball team had was one conference championship year on its banner.
 
After its stirring win at Nos. 10 and 14 Colorado Mesa for the RMAC Tournament title last weekend, Roadrunners Pitching Coach Mark Vig photoshopped in "2022" under the NCAA Tournament heading on the baseball team's banner and texted it to the team.
 
"That was cooler than the real banner," pitcher Austin Stone said. "I'm looking forward to coming in here as an alum in the next five, 10, 15 years and seeing that."
 
Said all-region closer Eric Cox: "I did some long wall sits in the gym (in prior years), just looking at that banner."
 
This portion of the South Central Regional is a three-team, double-elimination setup. And it's critical to win the opening game because waiting in the wings is top-seeded host Angelo State (Texas), which is 45-10. And the loser of the opening game would face the Rams later Thursday night. That's right. The loser faces Angelo State with elimination on the line.
 
"That's the bracket, so that's the way it is," Strain said. "The first game is huge. You don't want to play two games in one day, especially playing the host in their own ballpark an hour later. We need to play the well the first game so we can get to Friday."
 
And, with high humidity and a game-time temperature forecast for 108 degrees, those are other reasons that it's not a bad idea to get a win and then beat the heat.
 
"It's going to be 60 degrees warmer than most of the games we've played this year," Strain said, smiling. "It'll be different, and our guys are going to have to adapt to it, but they'd rather play in the heat than the cold – the body moves a little better in the heat. Guys have been taking in a lot of fluids and we have to take care of themselves."
 
All kinds of climate conditions are at play for MSU Denver.
 
Yes, the Roadrunners boast one of Division II's most dynamic offenses – they lead the country in doubles, rank second in slugging percentage, third in hits and fourth in both home runs and runs. But the atmosphere figures to potentially suppress some of that firepower.
 
However, if that's the case, then the Roadrunners' pitching staff figures to reap some benefit from not having to pitch at altitude again.
 
"The ball doesn't travel quite the same here, so their pitching numbers are going to be better than ours," Strain said from San Angelo. "Hopefully that means our pitchers will have more success here. It's going to be important to play good defense, and we have a very good defense. You're not going to be able to give up extra outs and extra runs, because it's harder to score here.
 
"If we play good defense, pitch and not walk guys, it'll give our hitters a chance. And I still think hitters hit. Maybe they aren't home runs, but if we drive the ball like we should, maybe we just hit more doubles."
 
Texas A&M-Kingsville is the region's fourth seed, while MSU Denver is fifth. The Roadrunners and Javelinas are meeting for the first time ever.
 
In the Lone Star Conference, the league tournament is broken up over two weekends, with the winners of four best-of-3 series from the first weekend advancing to a four-team, double-elimination event the following week. The Javelinas were upset in their best-of-3, so they didn't play last weekend.
 
"Anybody in the regional is going to be a really good team," Strain said. "They've played well all year to get to this point. They're probably disappointed they didn't get to play the second weekend of their conference tournament and there's good and bad with that – they got some rest, but they didn't get to play (and stay sharp) last weekend. It'll be interesting to see how they come out and play."
 
Matchups with Lone Star teams are rare for RMAC schools – or anyone else. The Lone Star plays almost exclusively within its own league, so there's a true sense of the unknown.
 
"We played in Texas three years ago," Cox said. "The offenses in the RMAC are different that the offenses in the Lone Star. We're at altitude and they have humidity – balls move more, balls don't go as far. We have to try to play to our advantage, roll the balls out there and see what we can do."