DENVER – MSU Denver's Hayes Edens, a catcher by trade, pays attention to pitch sequences.
 
"Probably more than I should," Edens said.
 
But, when he was batting in the bottom of the ninth in a tie game against Biola (Calif.) in the first game of a Friday doubleheader, it came in handy.
 
"I saw that he was doubling up on breaking balls after a fastball," Edens said. "He threw a fastball for a strike and then a breaking ball, so I knew it was coming."
 
Edens launched a two-run, walk-off homer that gave the Roadrunners a 4-2 victory, and he had two more clutch hits in the second game as the Roadrunners completed the sweep with a come-from-behind 8-4 win.
 
"It was amazing," Edens said of his home run. "I'm just happy that the guys were doing their part and allowed me that chance to have an at-bat in that situation. That's the biggest part – the team got me there and then I was able to come through."
 
Edens also had a front-row seat for a turnaround day for the Roadrunners' pitching staff.
 
One day after MSU Denver squandered leads of nine and eight runs, respectively, and giving up 30 total runs while being swept by the Eagles, Jack Slominski and Brad Helton turned in excellent starts, and the bullpen kept the game in reach.
 
"You couldn't have had a better guy than Jack throwing in game one after we went through last night," MSU Denver coach Ryan Strain said. "Because you know he's going to compete, he's going to throw strikes and he's going to get deep in the game – which he did."
 
Slominski struck out a career-high 10 while allowing one run on six hits, with no walks, in seven innings.
 
"You can't ask for more," Edens said. "I just ask them to trust me and throw what I put down (pitch call), and they hit their spots. The staff had a rough first two games, but they really turned it around. They set the tone for our staff."
 
Slominski left with a 2-1 lead, and although Biola tied it with an eighth-inning homer, MSU Denver was able to win it in the ninth on Edens' heroics.
 
"No one has been riding our catchers more than me," Strain said. "We've been pretty fortunate with the catchers we've had here the last few years. We're searching for the guy there, and Hayes has been grinding it out. He's physical and strong. He's put in extra work, and he's made changes in his swing that have given him a chance to be more offensive."
 
Strain liked what he saw enough to put Edens in the lineup for the second game. Sixteen innings behind the plate is no easy feat.
 
"If anyone is tough enough to do it, growing up on a farm like he did, it's him," Strain said.
 
Said Edens, laughing: "A light day. Anything for skip."
 
Helton realistically had just one bad pitch in his outing – it turned into a three-run homer.
 
But MSU Denver battled back and eventually tied the game 4-4 in the bottom of the fifth of the seven-inning game, scoring three runs on an RBI single by Caleb Albaugh, Edens' RBI double and a clutch two-out RBI single by Brooks Rasmussen.
 
The Roadrunners then scored four in the sixth, moving ahead on Tyler Tobey's RBI double, a run-scoring infield single by Edens, a wild pitch, and another two-out RBI from Rasmussen – on a double.
 
"The nice part about today is that a lot of the damage was done by the bottom of our order," Strain said. "We didn't get a whole lot from some of our big guys in the middle. When you're a new team with a lot of new guys, you need your best players to play well. They'll come around."