DENVER – Third place in the Gold Bracket of the Colorado Premier Challenge with a win over fifth-ranked nine-time national champion Concordia-St. Paul (Minn.).
 
That's a pretty good weekend.
 
No. 3 MSU Denver was tripped up by underrated No. 13 Chaminade (Hawaii) 3-1 in a semifinal, but bounced back to outlast Concordia 3-2 and improved to 7-1 on Saturday at the Colorado Premier Challenge.
 
"It's a tough tournament, the toughest there is until you get to post-season," MSU Denver coach Jenny Glenn said. "Everybody is really good. Everybody makes you bring your best, and everybody – when you're No. 3 in the country – is coming at you with their best.
 
"I thought we grew a lot over the weekend, got exposed to so many different scenarios, played different styles of teams in every match. For our younger players, it was such a great experience."
 
Against Chaminade, the Roadrunners struggled in the opening set but got off to leads of 15-9 and 20-15 in the second set before fading. Seemingly on the verge of being swept when facing third-set deficits of 22-16 and 23-18, MSU Denver rallied for the final seven points of the set to force a fourth frame.
 
Early in the fourth set, senior outside hitter Riley Anderson became the 17^th player in MSU Denver history to surpass 1,000 career kills.
 
"She's a great attacker who continues to develop great shots," Glenn said. "And I think we're just hitting our stride with her this year. We weren't connecting as well with her last week, but this week we were able to get her a ball that she could hit some of her favorite shots on. She's really hard to defend."
 
Chaminade played with the lead for most of the fourth set, but MSU Denver edged ahead at 20-19. The Silverswords then took a 23-20 advantage, before MSU Denver tied it 23-23.
 
But Chaminade scored the next two points to clinch the 25-16, 25-23, 23-25, 25-23 victory.
 
Anderson had a team-high 13 kills and Kryssa Moerman had nine kills and a team-best nine blocks. Chaminade had a 9-1 advantage in service aces and a 58-46 advantage in kills.
 
"They're a fast offensive team, and their arms are really fast," Glenn said. "And they're super scrappy, play feisty defense, and their setter distributes the ball really well. They make you be really good. When we didn't get overwhelmed by their play, we were winning the match, or at least competing with them. When we let things get to us, they made some runs on us. It was a great match."
 
Anderson, Moerman and Annika Helf were all named to the 13-player all-tournament team.
 
Anderson ranked fifth with 3.69 kills per set and 59 kills and was third with 4.3 points per set, Moerman had tournament bests of 27 blocks and 1.69 blocks per set, and Helf led the tournament with 0.9 service aces per set was second with nine aces and ranked seventh with 3.9 points per set.
 
In the 25-19, 24-26, 22-25, 25-16, 15-11 decision over Concordia-St. Paul, the Roadrunners won their three sets relatively comfortably while losing two closely-contested sets.
 
After dropping the second and third sets, Glenn returned Annika Helf to the lineup and inserted right-side hitter Aliva Huxoll into just her second match of the season. Both had a major impact.
 
"We have a lot of depth and a lot of experienced depth where we can make some changes," Glenn said. "It's nice. It's not that players are playing poorly, we just need a different matchup or a different look, and that's what it was tonight."
 
During the four-match weekend, MSU Denver had tournament bests of a .163 opponent hitting percentage and 3.28 blocks per set. They were second with 1.75 service aces per set.
 
Against Concordia, Anderson had 18 kills, and true freshman Alyssa Boyte had nine blocks, including three solos. The Roadrunners had a season-high 16 total blocks.
 
"That's a perennial powerhouse team, and they're always good," Glenn said. "They're always going to put pressure on you. They're well-coached and well-disciplined. … They're a big, physical team, and we did a good job of making defensive adjustments on them."