DENVER – Pitching and defense.
 
Maybe that's not what the MSU Denver baseball team has been known for in recent years – not with one of Division II's most explosive offenses from 2021 through 2023 – but Tuesday was all about pitching and defense as the Roadrunners swept a doubleheader against UCCS.
 
And yes that's even though the first game was a 15-11 victory. The Roadrunners won the second game 6-1.
 
"Other than the first inning, our pitching today was really good," MSU Denver coach Ryan Strain said. "If you pitch like that and play pretty good defense, you're always in the game. Fortunately we were able to stay in it in the first game to allow our offense to get going."
 
MSU Denver trailed 6-0 after the first inning of the opener and 7-0 after two, but the Roadrunners' bullpen – primarily Marcos Palacios and Gabe Austin – kept UCCS in check and the offense chipped away, eventually building a 15-7 lead.
 
The seven-inning second game was the Brad Helton show, as the junior right-hander held his hometown team to one run in six innings of work.
 
"This week all the pitchers sat down with Coach Strain for a while, and went over the gameplan for this weekend," Austin said. "We wanted to throw our offspeed pitches for strikes and live down in the zone. Marcos did exactly what we talked about, and then I came into the game and tried to keep the ball rolling and give our team a chance to score some runs, keep us in the game, and switch the momentum."
 
Palacios had the best of his five MSU Denver outings, with 2 2/3 shutout innings in which he allowed three hits and a walk while striking out three.
 
Then came Austin (1-1), who turned in one of the longest outings of his career, allowing three hits and one walk while striking out four in his three-inning stint.
 
"Surprisingly my fastball was my least effective pitch, but my breaking ball and my changeup were both working really well," Austin said. "Changing speeds and living down in the zone allowed me to have some success."
 
Brady McLean gave up an unearned run in the eighth, and Zane Covey cleaned up in the ninth after UCCS got a three-run rally going against Jason Kramlich.
 
"Almost every pitcher we threw this weekend flashed their best stuff," Austin said. "It isn't always going to go our way, but when we compete like that, we're going to give our team a chance to win a lot of games."
 
Helton (2-3) worked around some traffic – 10 hits and two walks – but he got two timely double plays turned behind him, ending the first and fifth innings.
 
In the sixth, with the bases loaded and MSU Denver up 5-1, he got an inning-inning groundout by Hayden Iverson, a quality hitter who had given the Roadrunners fits.
 
"That was a big spot and he's a good hitter, and I knew I couldn't leave something up for him to crush," Helton said. "I wanted to make sure he didn't hit it out of the park, and he didn't."
 
It was the third quality start – six innings or more, with three earned runs or less – for Helton.
 
"It was definitely an up-and-down game and I had to work hard to get zeroes," Helton said. "The double plays behind me were huge. Obviously I put the runners on base, but then I was able to execute a pitch, they fielded it and did what they needed to do."
 
Gavin Kaiser pitched an impressive seventh and final inning, appropriately getting a game-ending double play.
 
"We know we're good," Helton said of the pitching staff, which has had some excellent games this season. "We know playing baseball, in the RMAC, makes it challenging. All we've done is work harder each week and try to bounce back and do everything we can to win ballgames."
 
Leadoff hitter Andrew Biddle led the charge offensively, going 6-for-7 for the day, including 3-for-3 – all doubles – while scoring four of MSU Denver's six runs in the second game. Jesse Velders also had three hits in the second game and four for the day.
 
"We didn't swing it very well the second game," Strain said. "But we got some big hits. Biddle and some of the other guys had some nice at-bats. But really it was Brad and Kaiser coming in and doing the job. They commanded all their pitches. When they're down in the (strike) zone and fill it up … those guys have really good arms and they have a chance to be really successful."