GOLDEN, Colo. – Nos. 19/13 MSU Denver saw its school-record winning streak come to an end at 17 games, but the Roadrunners bounced back impressively to reach the 40-win plateau for the first time in program history.
Colorado School of Mines won Saturday's opening game, scheduled for seven innings, 4-3 in the eighth, before MSU Denver produced a 14-7 win in the second game in another seven-inning affair.
The Roadrunners are now 40-9 for the season, including 25-6 in Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference play. They have won 26 of their last 28 games, and their last three losses have been one-run decisions.
"I'm really proud of our guys," MSU Denver coach
Ryan Strain said. "Great teams get to 40 wins, because it's really tough to get there when you only play 50 games in the regular season. I've told our guys that I appreciate how they've worked hard, and I also appreciate the players who've come before them to help build this team, because if it wasn't for the guys before them, and they success they had, I wouldn't have been able to convince these guys to come here.
"So I'm really proud of them. They've done some big things and hopefully they've still got some big things ahead of them, too."
In the second game,
Zach Schuler was 2-for-5 with a homer and five RBIs,
Ross Smith was 3-for-5 with two doubles and two RBIs, and
Jake Williams was 2-for-4 with a homer and three RBIs.
The Roadrunners rapped out 14 hits in support of starter
Carson Brown (5-1), who had a 9-1 lead after 3 ½ innings and led 9-2 after four before running into some trouble in a four-run Mines uprising in the fifth.
In the sixth, with MSU Denver leading 12-6,
Zane Covey relieved
Brad Helton with the bases loaded and no outs, and yielded only a sacrifice fly before getting an inning-ending double play. Covey then pitched a scoreless seventh.
Williams homered in both games, including a solo shot in the fourth inning of the opener that put MSU Denver ahead 1-0.
Mines answered with two in the bottom of the fourth and another in the sixth behind top pitcher Kevin Zapanta, who struck out 13.
"He was good," Strain said. "He's thrown well all year, and he was 90 to 93 (mph) with a nice slider. I still think we should have had some better at-bats against him, but it's tough. We haven't faced anyone with that kind of velocity for quite a while and it was a little tough to adjust."
In the seventh, though, Smith and
Colin Stone both homered to force extra innings.
Mines, however, won it in the bottom of the eighth.
Smith's two doubles in the second game give him a Division II-leading 30, which is two short of the RMAC's single-season record of 32 set by Sam Christensen of Southern Colorado (now CSU Pueblo) in 2001. The Division II record is 33, by Andrew Hansen of Nebraska-Omaha in 2009.
With 50 doubles in two seasons, Smith is already fifth in program history.
MSU Denver and Mines wrap up their four-game series with a nine-inning single game Sunday at noon.
