DENVER – No. 8 MSU Denver clinched the No. 1 seed for the Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference tournament and earned at least a share of a third straight RMAC regular-season title on Friday with a 3-0 sweep of Western Colorado.
 
The Roadrunners can wrap up sole possession of the conference championship with a win in Saturday's 4 p.m. regular-season finale against Fort Lewis on Senior Day at the Auraria Event Center.
 
MSU Denver, 20-5 overall and 12-1 in league play, has now won at least a share of eight RMAC regular-season championships. The Roadrunners were 18-0 in league play in each of the previous two seasons, making them 48-1 in RMAC matches over that time. They have also won 44 straight regular-season RMAC home matches, dating to 2018.
 
"It's a tough conference to win," MSU Denver coach Jenny Glenn said. "This year has been more of a battle and a fight, which is really good. We needed that. Sometimes last year it wasn't hard enough.
 
"We're being tested in different areas, which helps us know where we need to improve our game, and we're making really good progress each week. I have a lot of faith in this group."
 
As the RMAC Tournament's No. 1 seed, MSU Denver is scheduled to play at home for all of its matches. That includes a 7 p.m. first-round match Tuesday against whichever team emerges as the No. 8 seed after play on Saturday. Should MSU Denver win Tuesday, it would play host to the semifinals on Nov. 17 and the final on Nov. 18.
 
Only two teams – Colorado Mesa and Regis – could tie MSU Denver for the regular-season title, but since the Roadrunners beat both of those teams in head-to-head conference matches, they have already clinched the top seed through that tiebreaker.
 
After hitting .419 through two sets Friday, the Roadrunners found themselves down 22-16 in the third, but promptly scored the final nine points of the match to end it.
 
"It was good for us to fight back at the end of the third set," Glenn said. "I told the team, 'We're winning this.' And they put the action behind it. We came up with some big blocks and took some aggressive swings."
 
MSU Denver had just one hitting error in the first set, setting the stage for what was eventually a 25-18, 25-16, 25-22 victory. Western Colorado dropped to 5-20 and 2-11.
 
"We came out pretty well and we were fairly efficient moving the ball around and played pretty clean volleyball," Glenn said. "We just got high-error in the third set. When we're making a lot of errors, it makes it hard to win by much."
 
Riley Anderson played just two sets and had 13 kills on .444 hitting, Maddy Williams had 10 kills on .500 hitting while adding four blocks, and Skyler Michael and Maddie Lindsay each had seven kills. Lindsay had her MSU Denver high of 13 digs.
 
True freshman middle blocker Kryssa Moerman followed up on her star turn from Wednesday's win over Colorado School of Mines with a career-high five kills as 12 of the 14 Roadrunners who played recorded at least one kill.
 
"We had an opportunity to rest some of our athletes who take a lot of swings and have a heavy load for us, and the girls who went in did a great job," Glenn said. "They locked down their positions, made good plays on the ball, and kept the mindset where it needed to be."