DENVER – It's the halfway point of the Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference women's basketball season, and MSU Denver has shown what it's capable of doing.
Now the Roadrunners want to do it more often. And a little more successfully.
"We're right there," MSU Denver guard
Kendra Parra said. "We're competing with the top teams. We just have to find a way in the fourth quarter to finish off these games."
The Roadrunners, who played a killer non-conference schedule, stand 7-10 overall and 5-6 in RMAC play with 11 league games left heading into Friday's 5:30 p.m. game at Western Colorado (4-11, 3-7).
MSU Denver is tied for seventh in the league – though it holds the tiebreaker advantage over the teams it is tied with (UCCS and Colorado Mesa), and for that matter, over sixth-place CSU Pueblo (6-5).
In a season of near misses and playing short-handed due to injuries, MSU Denver is a mere 10 points away (and probably closer) from standing 8-3, which would put them tied for third and just a half-game out of first in the league since in that scenario 10-2 Colorado School of Mines would be 9-3 and second-place Regis would be 7-3 and not 8-2.
The Roadrunners lost 67-64 on a 3-pointer at the buzzer at Westminster (now 7-4) back in December. And, just when the sting from that loss seemed to have finally subsided, came two maddening losses in four days – 63-60 at Regis on Saturday and 63-62 against nationally-ranked Mines on Tuesday.
MSU Denver led Regis by 11 points in the third quarter and by nine in the fourth before falling behind with two minutes left. Against Mines, the Roadrunners had three possessions – three! – in the final 13 seconds but were unable to score the winning basket, including on a shot at the buzzer.
And the Roadrunners are kicking themselves a bit, because a number of layups were missed against Mines, which might've made for a far different story.
"We have to finish better inside," MSU Denver coach
Tanya Haave said. "We have to be tougher, from both a post perspective and a guard perspective."
Haave has no doubts about her team's ability and its effort level, and that's a great place to start.
Should the Roadrunners secure a steady diet of wins over the second half of the league season, it should find itself among the league's top eight with a chance to play in the RMAC Tournament.
They hope to start that against a Western Colorado team whose record doesn't jump out, but who has also beaten Chadron State (a team that beat MSU Denver) and played third-place Black Hills State to a three-point game. Those games are among a number of solid performances the Mountaineers have had on their home court. Western Colorado has also won the last four games in the series with MSU Denver.
Parra leads the RMAC in scoring (18.4 points) per game and free throw percentage (86.2), ranks second in Division II in free throws made (94), and is one of eight Division II players averaging at least 18.4 points, 6.0 rebounds, 1.9 assists and 1.8 steals.
She'll no doubt be a focal point for Western Colorado, but it's a role she's getting used to.
"It gets a little exhausting, but if you're not going to score you help somewhere else," Parra said.
