DENVER – Danny Sanchez raised the standard of MSU Denver women's soccer.
 
Adrianne Almaraz Pietz kept it there.
 
A captain on the Roadrunners' first national championship team in 2004, an assistant coach for the 2006 national champions and then the program's highly successful head coach from 2008 through 2016, even now Pietz has been part of 46 percent of the program's all-time victories.
 
"In my 27 years as a head coach on the women's side, I can count the great captains and leaders I've had on one hand," said Sanchez, now the head coach at Colorado. "That's not a knock on the other players, it's just that certain players have a certain quality, an innate ability to read the situation and know what to bring to the coach, what not to bring to the coach. Adrianne was off the charts in that area."
 
Pietz, who as head coach took the Roadrunners to seven NCAA Tournaments, including the 2008 national semifinals, takes her place alongside Sanchez and other MSU Denver legends in the MSU Denver Athletics Hall of Fame on Sept. 30. The banquet at the Tivoli Turnhalle on the MSU Denver campus begins with a 6 p.m. social hour, with dinner and the program to follow at 7 p.m. Tickets are available here. Also being inducted are Ymara Guante, a teammate of Almaraz Pietz and the 2004 National Player of the Year, and highly-successful softball coach Jen Fisher.
 
As a player, assistant and head coach, Pietz was part of teams that were 233-46-36 overall and 156-22-20 in regular-season Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference play, giving her a direct hand in 506 victories.
 
"It has been an honor," Pietz said. "There are such amazing people at the institution. To be a part of that for a phase has been extraordinary. To be part of all these peoples' lives, whether it was teammates, or helping student-athletes and then becoming the head coach. I just feel extremely blessed that I got an opportunity to be part of it."
 
Almaraz joined MSU Denver in 2003, after two seasons at Cal State Bakersfield. She earned first team all-region and second team All-RMAC accolades.
 
"From Day One you could see her quality," Sanchez said. "She was a natural-born leader on the field, a holding mid who dictated the pace of play, a great left foot and just a calm about her – how she played and how she led our team to that 2004 national championship."
 
She helped lead the Roadrunners to a 25-1-0 overall record and 23 straight victories to end the season, culminating in the national championship. She was a first team All-RMAC and a second team all-Midwest Region selection after starting all 26 games and totaling 12 points, including four goals.
 
Her penalty kick goal in the national championship game against Adelphi (N.Y.) gave the Roadrunners a 2-1 lead in the 78^th minute. Though Adelphi tied the game, the Roadrunners won 3-2 with 39 seconds left in regulation as Kylee Hanavan scored on an assist from Guante.
 
"We had this determination, and we weren't going to be set back by anything," Pietz said. "Just as any team goes through trials and tribulations, we had our highs and lows. That's what team sports are about, what competition is about. The most important thing is that we were going to persevere through everything, and we did. We had fun. We did all the things that championship teams do."
 
After a season away from MSU Denver in 2005, she returned as an assistant coach.
 
"It was a unique situation for her," Sanchez said. "She was still connected to a lot of the players and she had to separate her relationships with the players with being a coach, and she did it seamlessly. She was able to be a connector between myself and the team. She jumped in was fully respected by the players, and the players saw how much I respected her as a person and a coach."
 
The 2006 team was 24-2 overall, beating Grand Valley State (Mich.) 1-0 in the championship on Kira Sharp's direct kick 93:39.
 
"The '04 team was so determined and had so much talent," Pietz said. "The 06 team was so gritty and had so much fight. It was two separate teams, but they were both championship teams with championship players and coaches."
 
Two years later, Sanchez got his first Division I opportunity at Wyoming and Pietz was ready to head the program herself, becoming one of the youngest head coaches in the country when hired by then-Athletic Director Joan McDermott while still in her mid-20s. She directed the Roadrunners to are record of 124-38-32, including 82-21-19 in RMAC play.
 
"I told Joan, it's your decision, but without hesitation I recommended Adrianne to be the head coach," Sanchez said. "Her maturity level, her knowledge of the game, how she carries herself, her strong family background … and she knows what Metro is about. Metro is different, especially back then. She knew how to recruit to that school and how to get the best out of the student-athletes there."