DENVER – The Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference opener for the MSU Denver men's soccer team can probably best be described as opportunity lost.
 
Up 1-0 at halftime, and with Regis destined to play a man down after receiving a red card just before the break, the Roadrunners were unable to break through for another goal and had to settle for a 1-1 tie after the Rangers converted on a penalty kick at 68:05.
 
"It's frustrating, because I think it's on us," MSU Denver coach Nick Kirchhof said. "We had everything to play for, every reason to keep attacking. The halftime talk was, 'Keep going after them.' And I think we stopped, and we got punished for it.
 
"I want us working hard for a full 90 minutes, paying attention to detail, regardless of whether we're a man up or a man down – whatever the case might be. Unfortunately today we have a lot to blame ourselves about and we're almost more fortunate just to get a point out of it."
 
Said defender Jonas Votaw: "The first half we came out and we were buzzing. We were going at them like we planned. We just didn't play at our level in the second half."
 
Votaw, Mr. Set Piece for the Roadrunners with his deliveries on free kicks, corner kicks and throw-ins, got his team started with a free kick into the box that Aidan Bates headed past the Regis goalkeeper just 6:42 into the match.
 
"Routine," Votaw said. "We work on it in practice. I found my man Aidan and he put it in the back of the net. It's pretty simple when you can put it on somebody's forehead."
 
It was Bates' fourth goal of the season, while Votaw earned his fourth assist.
 
"It was a great delivery, Aidan got on the end of it, and it's a fantastic goal to score," Kirchhof said. "You score early, you have the momentum. We did everything right in the first half.
 
"We did a couple things OK in the second half, but we kept losing the ball underneath, kept losing the ball in bad spots, and then there wasn't that urgency to defend when we did lose it."
 
In the second half, despite playing a man down, Regis had a 3-0 advantage in shots on goal.
 
"It's all mentality," Kirchhof said. "And that's what I've been preaching. When we're tuned in and working, we're a fantastic team. When we decide to take our foot off the gas, we start making silly mistakes we don't normally make and good teams punish us.
 
"Regis has good attacking players. The plan wasn't to sit back and take the foot off the gas, the plan was to score the next goal. I don't think we actually went for it."
 
So, while the Roadrunners beat the same team at Regis 3-0 just seven days earlier in a non-conference game, they were able to take only one point out of the league opener.
 
MSU Denver lost the man advantage for the final 6:08 after taking a red card of its own.
 
"The positive thing is that we got a point, and every point matters in this conference, but it's definitely disappointing at the end of the day," Kirchhof said.

The Roadrunners will look for a more favorable result Sunday in an 11 a.m. game at South Dakota Mines.
 
"We'll regroup," Kirchhof said. "We'll get better from it. We'll learn from it. And we have a big one on Sunday where we need to make sure we get as many points as we can."

Said Votaw: "There are things you want to remember from this game, and things you don't. You have to have a short memory, so you move on to the next one. Every game is for points now, so we just have to get the next one."