DENVER – After three straight perfect 10s, the MSU Denver softball offense took it to 11.
The Roadrunners completed a four-game sweep of Black Hills State on Monday with victories of 10-6 and 11-3 after winning Sunday's games by identical 10-1 scores.
"We finally put it all together," outfielder
Shelby Robb said. "Our pitching was on point, and the hits came. Yesterday we hit the ball really hard, and today we used more of our speed. There's a lot of different ways to do a lot of good things."
MSU Denver banged out double figures in hits in all four games, even though three of them were stopped after just four offensive innings due to the eight-run rule, and for the series hit an ethereal .455 (46-for-101).
"We feel great," said infielder
Miki Berg, who was 4-for-4 and scored four runs while hitting a homer on the day. "No matter who we're playing, we just need to make sure we get the four wins and make sure we stay true to ourselves."
For the series, Berg was 6-for-7 with two homers and five RBIs, but she had plenty of help.
Reigning RMAC Player of the Week
Hannah DiFabio hit .615 (8-for-13) with three doubles, two homers, eight RBIs, seven runs and three stolen bases, Robb hit .500 (6-for-12) with two doubles, six RBIs and three stolen bases, and
Genevieve Bower also hit .500 (5-for-10) with one homer and five RBIs.
Everyone is heating up for MSU Denver, which improved to 9-5 overall and 4-0 in the Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference with its fifth straight win.
"Some of those people whose names we haven't mentioned as much as others are putting together some really nice at-bats," Van Wetzinga said, specifically citing
Aaliyah Arellano,
Trish Leins and
Katie Maney.
MSU Denver needed to put together some quality at-bats in the opener as Black Hills State bounced back from a rough Sunday and led the Roadrunners 3-0 after 2 ½ innings, and then recovered after a five-run MSU Denver rally to take a 6-5 lead after 4 ½.
"We talked about it at the end of the day yesterday and again this morning … they don't give up," Van Wetzinga said. "They always play with a lot of energy and pride. So I'm not shocked by that. Their pitchers came out and executed pitches better. They were sharper and had tougher at-bats, too."
MSU Denver took the lead in the bottom of the fifth as Robb flipped a double down the right field line to score
Kami Grammerstorf from second, then Robb scored herself on the play as an errant throw trying to pick her off second base rolled to the left-field fence.
Grammerstorf had started the inning by drawing a walk, and she then stole second base. She had three stolen bases Monday and is now 10-for-10 this season, extending her streak of consecutive stolen bases – dating to her freshman season – to a school-record 65 in a row.
She has 71 stolen bases for her career, and needs five to pass the school record of 75 set by Colissa Bakovich (2014-17).
"Yesterday seemed like it came easy – we were hitting balls hard from the jump," Van Wetzinga said. "It wasn't necessarily like that today. I was happy with our hitters eventually making adjustments and taking what they gave us. Let's get some base hits and use some speed."
