DENVER – MSU Denver's red-hot start during the league softball season continued Sunday as the Roadrunners swept CSU Pueblo for the second straight day to improve to 12-0 in Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference games.
 
MSU Denver (15-6 overall) won 11-0 and 9-1, with both games stopped after five innings due to the eight-run rule, to post its third consecutive four-game sweep in league play.
 
"It's not easy to sweep teams," MSU Denver coach Annie Van Wetzinga said. "Pueblo has good talent and can do some things – they've started with a tough conference schedule and they're better than their record indicates. … We appreciate what we're doing, and we don't take it for granted, but each weekend and each game is a new battle."
 
MSU Denver is off to its best start in league play since opening the 2017 season 14-0 against RMAC opponents.
 
"Our chemistry is really great and we're working together well as a team," pitcher Jenna Medhus said. "It's a great start for us and we want to keep it going. If we can keep our foot on the gas, it would be great."
 
Medhus was great again in Sunday's second game, allowing one run on four hits in her second complete-game win of the weekend. Combined with Saturday's seven-inning outing, she allowed two earned runs on 11 hits in 12 innings.
 
"I started off a little rough, but I think I tend to get better as the game goes on," Medhus said of her Sunday outing. "A huge part of that is knowing how great my defense is. Just being able to throw strikes and know that they are going to get every ground ball and every popup really helps take a lot of pressure off me as a pitcher.
 
"I've always been a contact pitcher, so having a great defense behind me really helps."
 
Medhus is now 7-2 with a sparkling 2.63 ERA, and what she's done as a true freshman is no surprise to her coach.
 
"We had a pretty good idea of what we were getting," Van Wetzinga said. "She's just very steady. She's typically really efficient. She may not be a huge strikeout pitcher, but she just gets the job done. She gets ground balls, gets outs, pitches around it if there are people on base. You can't over-appreciate her consistency and steadiness."
 
Medhus said she's off to a better start than she had expected, and credits first-game winning Audrey Burt with helping her quick development.
 
"She's helped me grow a lot as a pitcher," Medhus said. "We help each other. Anytime we see something we can help each other with, we try to help each other out."
 
Facing CSU Pueblo for a second straight day, Medhus was sharper. That's necessary, she said, when facing a team for the second day in a row.
 
"It's a little harder," Medhus said. "They attack early, so you have to mix speeds and locations. The second time you have to be more sharper and more consistent and not give them pitches they can handle."
 
Said Van Wetzinga: "They've already seen you once. You're not showing them anything new. And that's why it's nice she came out and did what she was able to do. It wasn't always pretty, maybe everything wasn't necessarily working. But we've seen this from her before … she's competitive and will do what she needs to do to get outs and keep us in the game."
 
After a bit of a rough day Saturday, when the Roadrunners committed seven errors over two games, they were on point Sunday.
 
"We were much sharper in every aspect," Van Wetzinga said. "We showed up today with goals set to be sharper, and to the credit of our athletes, we were. They set the tone right away and it was fun to see."
 
In the opener, the Roadrunners added six more stolen bases to the 11 they had Saturday, and they twice scored from second base on cleanly-fielded ground balls as the throw went to first base.
 
"That's how our team is built," Van Wetzinga said. "We're very athletic and we're fast. And this team knows that. They have fun with it. It's fun to play that way, and they've bought into it. We can create a lot of offense that way."
 
Burt (5-4) allowed only one hit in four shutout innings.
 
In the second game, MSU Denver gave up a first-inning run and didn't score until the fourth inning – but scored all nine runs needed to end the game early in that frame. Shelby Robb started and ended the scoring, with an RBI triple that tied the game 1-1 and a two-run double that made it 9-1.
 
"The first couple of innings our at-bats weren't there, but I could tell during the third inning that they were getting better," Van Wetzinga said. "And credit to our team … if we're down, there's no panic. There's no give-up button for them. They just stay the course. You saw it again this weekend. That's a huge thing for a young team to have."