DENVER – The men's soccer team earned three important points on Friday night, defeating Adams State 2-0 to improve to 6-6-3 overall and 3-2-2 in the Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference. The Grizzlies fell to 2-8-2 overall and 0-5-1 in the RMAC.
 
"You know I thought we created a lot more dangerous chances than we've had against some teams that have been sitting back against us," Head coach Nick Kirchhof said on his teams 18 shots, with 11 of them coming on frame. "I think we could have easily had three or four goals on the day if we were a little bit sharper on finishing. But overall I thought that was a really good performance from the group."
 
Kirchhof made a change in the starting lineup, inserting sophomore forward Zack Williams. And the Rapid City, South Dakota native didn't disappoint after scoring both goals in the victory.
 
"Zach has been training really well and if chances have been falling to him, he's been scoring on them in training," said Kirchhof. "Credit to Zack, he's been working really hard in training and he's looked the cleanest on finishing. I was really happy he was able to bag two today."
 
"I'm really blessed to get that opportunity from Nick," Williams said on getting just his second start of the season. "I was working pretty hard in the last couple of weeks and to finally get another opportunity to start and kind of prove what I was doing in practice over the week, it just felt really good.   
 
Williams scored his first goal of the game during the 20^th minute on a beautiful build up that started from Luke Bone.
 
"Someone crossed it in off my guy JV (Jackson Vander Ven) and he set it on the platter for me, all I had to do was hit it and put it on target." Williams said on his first goal. "Once that one went in, it was a sigh of relief." 
 
The second goal from Williams came in the second half and it was an all-out individual effort, dancing through traffic to rip the shot from outside of the box past the diving keeper. 
 
The three points allowed MSU Denver to jump into fourth place in the RMAC Standings after Fort Lewis fell to the Colorado School of Mines in Golden. For this Roadrunners team, the playoff race is getting really exciting.
 
"At the end of the day, we're trying to get a home game in the playoffs and I think what we're doing right now is leading us to that track," Williams said.
 
"Every game in the RMAC is so hard," Kirchhof said. "No matter if you're playing home or away, night or day, Thursday or Sunday, so from here on out we just need to try and get a maximum amount of points as we possibly can."
 
MSU Denver starting goalkeeper Nick McNeil made five saves, including a key one down the stretch, to earn his sixth win on the season and securing his fifth shutout in 2024. 
 
The Roadrunners will next welcome in the Skyhawks from Fort Lewis on Sunday for a Noon start time. The squad will also celebrate their eight seniors on their last regular season game at home.