DENVER – From the frying pan into the fire. Jumping into the deep end of the pool.
 
You get the idea.
 
The start of the Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference portion of the men's soccer schedule is anything but easy for the MSU Denver men's soccer team.
 
The Roadrunners open league play Thursday with a 7 p.m. game against CSU Pueblo, the defending national runner-up team that is currently ranked No. 7 in NCAA Division II. After that is a Sunday game against UCCS, merely picked third in the RMAC.
 
Oh, and did we mention that those games are also on the road, meaning that the Roadrunners seventh and eighth games out of 10 away from home to start the season?
 
There's that, too.
 
"This is why we played the (difficult) games we did in non-conference," MSU Denver coach Nick Kirchhof said. "We tried to schedule tough games away. Games in different environments, so we could be more prepared. And the last three games, we've played some really nice soccer, even though we haven't always gotten the result we wanted.
 
"It's always tough to open the conference season by playing two of the top teams in the conference and the region."
 
CSU Pueblo is 6-1-1 this season with three wins over top-25 teams countered by a 1-0 loss at league power Colorado School of Mines.
 
"Pueblo is obviously a top program, not only in the RMAC but in the country," Kirchhof said. "I always see games like this as a tremendous opportunity that creates a great level of excitement. It's not all the time that you get a chance to play teams in the top 10, and I always love that.
 
"They're very well coached, very organized defensively, and they have top players at every position. When you can put all of those things together, you're bound to have success."
 
MSU Denver, which enters league play at 2-4-2, made the same trip the final week of last season, needing two wins to make the RMAC Tournament. The Roadrunners sprung and upset at UCCS, but fell 2-0 at CSU Pueblo.
 
UCCS is 4-2-2 overall, losing only to nationally-ranked teams, including 1-0 last Sunday in a game against CSU Pueblo played as a non-conference event.
 
"Last year we were fortunate to get the result there," Kirchhof said. "But we competed and we were clinical with our chances. That has to be part of our success this week. He have to be hard-working, tough to break down, and we have to take advantage of our chances."