GRAND JUNCTION, Colo. – MSU Denver has built its offensive juggernaut on power.
 
Late Thursday night, in the winner's bracket of the Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference Tournament, the Roadrunners walked-off in extra innings fashion with … a squeeze bunt.
 
Tanner Garner, Division II's second-leading hitter at .461, who had hit his second homer of the tournament earlier in the game, and had driven in four runs on three hits while also lining out twice, suggested the squeeze in a brief timeout with coach Ryan Strain. That was just before stepping to the plate in the 11^th inning, with Caleb Albaugh representing the winning run at third base.
 
"He said, 'What do you think about bunting here?'" Strain said. "Originally the plan was to bunt to third, but their third baseman is a pretty good athlete and had made some nice plays, and the runner can read it better if you bunt to first.
 
"Then I walked up to Caleb … and whispered to him, 'I think he's going to bunt, so be ready.'"
 
Garner calmly pushed a bunt up the first-base line and Albaugh was ready and read it correctly to score on the safety squeeze for a 10-9 thriller of a victory over third-seeded Regis.
 
MSU Denver advanced to the winner's bracket final, scheduled for 11 a.m. Friday – just over 12 hours after Thursday's game ended – against top-seeded tournament host and national Nos. 5 and 1 Colorado Mesa. The winner gets the rest of Friday off, while the loser will play an elimination game Friday night at 7 p.m. against the winner of Friday's 3 p.m. elimination game between Regis and CSU Pueblo.
 
So the Roadrunners (42-10), who won in walk-off fashion in Wednesday's opening-round game on a shot by Cam Yuran that traveled close to 400 feet, won it Thursday on a bunt that traveled about 40 feet.
 
Another bunt in the 11th inning, a two-strike sacrifice by Zach Paschke that advanced Albaugh to second base, helped key the winning rally. Cody Schultz followed with a single to left that moved Albaugh to third and set it up for Garner.
 
Albaugh was the mid-game hero delivering a game-tying three-run double in the bottom of the fifth after second-seeded MSU Denver – receiving votes in one national poll and No. 19 in another – had fallen behind 5-2. The Roadrunners scored three more runs in the inning, two of them on a Garner single.
 
But Regis, which scored at least one run in all but two of the first eight innings of the game, chipped away and eventually tied it 9-9 in the eighth.
 
There was a five-minute delay in the bottom of the ninth as the clock struck 10 p.m. and the ballpark lights automatically turned off. After that, it was the MSU Denver bullpen that was lights-out, as Gabe Austin and Brady McLean (4-0) each pitched a scoreless inning, following up the scoreless top of the ninth that Zane Covey and Eric Cox combined to deliver.
 
Those four relievers have pitched in each of the first two days of the tournament.
 
"We've won doing a little bit of everything," Strain said. "My managing skills have probably been tested more in the last two games than they were in the first 50. We've used a lot of pitchers, used three of our starters, but you've got to stay in the winner's bracket. You can't start thinking too far ahead."