Early Bird

Roadrunner student-athletes soar

The first weekend of the MSU Denver fall sports season was fast and furious.

By Rob White

September 11, 2019

Volleyball

The Roadrunners volleyball team set its sights on reaching the NCAA Tournament for the 20^th straight season by winning all four matches at the Concordia-Portland (Ore.) Volleyball Invitational, including a straight-sets upset of Cal Poly Pomona. The Roadrunners are receiving votes in the AVCA national poll and will play host to the rugged Colorado Premier this weekend at the Auraria Event Center.

Tennis

Over at the Regency Athletic Complex, MSU Denver dominated its own tennis invitational, with Roadrunners finishing first in all six brackets of the tournament, including Daniel Llorente in Men’s A Singles and Tabitha Porter in Women’s A Singles.

Soccer

Meanwhile, Hank Lewis took his first MSU Denver men’s soccer team on the road for two games in the stifling Texas heat and picked up a victory Sunday at St. Edward’s on two second-half goals by senior Danny Bautista.

The MSU Denver women’s soccer team was busy with three home games in five days on its home field. Jessica Mooney scored two goals in a 3-0 win over St. Mary’s (Texas), and the Roadrunners suffered two hard-luck 1-0 defeats – to No. 11 Western Washington and to St. Edward’s.

Cross Country

Nick Lara took his first MSU Denver cross-country teams down to the UCCS Rust Buster, and the runners saw an average improvement of about 20 seconds over their times at the same meet last year, highlighted by Alden Gruidel’s 23.4-second improvement to finish in third place in the women’s race.

Visit RoadrunnerAthletics.com to keep up with all the action.