DENVER – As the Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference portion of the schedule begins for 2023, No. 9 MSU Denver is looking to pick up where it left off.
 
The Roadrunners, you may remember, have won a league-record 40 consecutive matches in regular-season RMAC play, having posted back-to-back 18-0 runs through the conference after winning their final four matches the previous season.
 
MSU Denver is set to play host to Colorado Christian at 6 p.m. Friday and to Chadron State at 4 p.m. Saturday at the Auraria Event Center.
 
"We don't talk about it," said MSU Denver coach Jenny Glenn, who has a .933 winning percentage (112-8) in RMAC play. "It's something I think can go either way … you put pressure on yourself to keep the streak going, or you stay focused on what your goal and mission is. If you focus too much on it, you're just adding more rocks to carry around in your backpack, and that doesn't help you jump higher or think more clearly.
 
"Our players know that MSU Denver wins a lot, and we draw confidence from that. If we stay focused on the right things, then the winning takes care of itself. All streaks usually come to an end at some point, but I'm also confident that we have the ability to win any match, no matter who is across the net from us."
 
Colorado Christian and Chadron State are among the many teams that MSU Denver has had success against in recent seasons.
 
The Roadrunners have won 11 straight against Colorado Christian dating to 2014, and are 40-3 against the Cougars since 2000. Colorado Christian, 4-4 this season, is picked to finish sixth in the RMAC, the same place it landed last year when it was 15-13 overall and 10-8 in league play.
 
"Colorado Christian is a solid program and will be tactical," Glenn said. "At this point of the season it's still very much a serve-and-pass game as offenses continue to find their rhythm and flow and start to develop. We'll look to control the serve-and-pass game and if you can do that, the rest usually falls into place."
 
MSU Denver has won 31 straight matches against Chadron State dating to 2004 and has an all-time mark of 54-2 against the Eagles. Chadron State is 4-3 and picked to finish 11^th in the RMAC after going 7-20 overall and tying for 10^th in the league at 5-13 in 2022.
 
"We are always well-prepared for our opponents and what they do," Glenn said. "But at the end of the day, no matter who we are playing, we want to do what we do well in order to win matches."
 
At No. 9 in the AVCA Division II poll, the Roadrunners are not in the national top six for the first time in 29 polls, dating to the third week of the 2021 season.
 
MSU Denver is 5-3, with two five-set losses against top-10 opponents. The Roadrunners lost twice last weekend (they were 2-2) at the Colorado Premier Challenge, to then-No. 1 West Texas A&M and to Lewis (Ill.), which has since jumped into the rankings at No. 23.
 
All eight matches the Roadrunners have played have been against teams that are ranked or are receiving votes. So even though three losses may seem a bit uncharacteristic for this program, no one thinks the sky is falling.
 
"We keep talking about the process, and last week is part of the process," Glenn said. "Of course it's hard to lose matches, but we have a choice to make – to make it more than it is, or use that moment to be part of our story. I firmly believe that we have a lot of room to grow as a group, and our goal is not to be maxing out at this time of season.
 
"In our four matches at the Premier, we learned a season's worth of lessons. That's why we scheduled so tough in the preseason, to learn as much about ourselves as we could while we still had almost a full season to work those things out."