Roadrunners On Deck Jan. 31 Women’s Hoops vs Chadron State 5 p.m. Auraria Men’s Hoops vs Chadron State 7 p.m. Auraria  Feb. 7 Women’s Hoops at Colorado Christian 6 p.m. Men’s Hoops at Colorado Christian 8 p.m. Feb. 8 Women’s Hoops at Colorado Mines 6 p.m. Men’s Hoops at Colorado Mines 8 p.m.  Feb. 12 Baseball Season Opener Metro at Regis 2 p.m.  Feb. 13 Homecoming Games Women’s Hoops vs Regis 5 p.m. Auraria Men’s Hoops vs Regis 7 p.m. Auraria Feb. 15 Baseball Homeopener Metro vs Hastings College Noon double-header, Auraria WEEKLY RESULTS Jan. 25 Men’s Hoops beats Fort Hays State 72-60 Women’s Hoops beats Fort Hays State 76-62 Jan. 23 Men’s Hoops lost to Nebraska-Kearney 80-64 Women’s Hoops lost to Nebraska-Kearney 73-60

Every now and again something happens in this life that shakes Scott Well, Randy Smith and James E. Bryant’s recollection. As their minds meander between the cobwebs and pixie dust, everything becomes still, real still.

“That they win national championships is outstanding,” said Wells, 51, who played on the first Metro men’s basketball teams. “It brings back fond memories.”

Of course, Wells is talking about Metro’s 2000 and 2002 National Division II men’s basketball titles. Think of that and soon enough images of the past roll over each other, but the group is still not quite sure whether they’re dreaming or remembering. Then, little by little, as they sat down for a summer lunch, they’re reliving it—the smelly gym, the players and lengthy Dan Kenlon hanging his head out the passenger window during a relentless snowstorm with wind that hits you like shards of glass.

The memories only span a few years for Coach Bryant, but the retired kinesiology professor from San Jose State University will always have a special place for Metro in his heart.

After Metro’s first president Kenneth Phillips announced the adaptation of Roadrunner sports in 1969, Bryant, a 29-year-old assistant from the University of Missouri, was hired as the first official Metro men’s basketball coach.

Bryant stayed in that capacity for three years well also working as an assistant PE professor. He left the college in 1986 as professor and chair of the Human Performance Department.

Today, the 62-year-old Bryant is enjoying the fruits of his labor in sunny Contra, Calif. The par five, sixth hole at the Brentwood Golf Club is a good seven iron from his house, beckoning him for another round of what he calls an “ego deflating game.” For two days over Christmas break, though, Bryant’s pride inflated as he admired the play and character of Metro’s national championship squad. Playing near his home, the Roadrunners beat San Francisco State and Sonoma State on back-to-back nights Dec. 20-21 with Bryant and his wife looking on.

This used to be his team.

During the past summer, Bryant met with a couple of his former players on those early teams, namely Mike Seeley, Smith, and Wells. Each still has a hard time not calling him by title.

“Coach Bryant was young back then, and not a lot older than those of us on the team,” said Smith, 49, a Jefferson County Sheriff. “Even so, I looked to him as a mentor and friend. One thing about Coach Bryant: He truly cared about everyone on the team as a person as well as a player.”

By 1969, man had walked on the moon, the Beatles were No. 1 on the music charts and, of minor note, the Metro men’s basketball team came into existence. Eleven players walked on for the first season. Most had played for area high schools. There were guards Skip Gray (Arvada High), Norman Beddow (Hinkley High), John Fleming (Hinkley High), Phil La Cour (Chicago), Barry Willis (Adams City High) and Scott Wells. Forwards: Frank Oliver (Adams City High), Jack Calkins (Cherry Creek High) and Art Maston (Arvada High). It was amateurism at its best. No scholarships were offered. In return the players went against solid competition and practiced their jumpers at the old dark and depressing National Guard Armory downtown.

“We all adjusted to the tough conditions, simply because we all had a basketball Jones,” said Wells, who played off and on from 1969-1971. “The Armory was an old gym, with wood backboards. The locker room was very small, with only two showerheads. Needless to say, the smell was pretty bad after practice.”

After games, the aroma wasn’t much better. The Roadrunners, going against taller, recruited players, put up a goose egg, a 0-25 record during their first season playing as an independent team in the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA). Twenty of the losses were by double-digits. The Roadrunners closest scent of victory came in a 92-86 loss to Black Hills State in the school’s first game on Nov. 24, 1969. By Christmas break, Bryant was down to five players, losing six to either injury or academic ineligibility. Seeley (St. Francis High), who became captain, and Bill Janda (Aurora High) were some of the top players that reinforced the depleted squad.

Calkins and Janda (who died in a motorcycle accident in the spring of 1970) averaged 14. 1 and 13.8 points, respectively, in that first year. Oliver, meanwhile, scored a record-high 40 points in a seven-point loss to New Mexico Highlands.

Bryant was most impressed, though, with Seeley, a freshman point guard with excellent playmaking ability. On top of averaging nearly 10 points a game, Seeley was married with a child and worked full time at a bank. Today, Bryant said Seeley is the president of his own commercial reality firm and a member of Metro’s alumni board. Calls to Seeley by The Metropolitan were not returned.

Still a stepchild on the college sporting scene, Metro didn’t have its own home floor, forcing the Roadrunners to play at George Washington, Abraham Lincoln and Arvada high schools, depending on what court was available at game time.

For the 1970-71 season, Bryant brought in several lengthy freshmen, including 6-foot-8 Kenlon, 6-6 Jim Crawford and 6-5 Willie Stewart. He also brought in three 6-2 players in Ron Rose and Dan Peavler.

“These freshman had limited experience,” Bryant said. “Some were considered as just a fifth or sixth man in high school.”

Courtesy photo - James E. Bryant Team picture of the 1970-71 Metro men’s basketball team, the second year of the Roadrunners existence in the NAIA. Back from left: Wayne Roberson, Dan Wareham, Jim Crawford, Larry Risk, Dan Kenlon, Ron Rose, Gregg Eyerly and Brasher (first name unknown). Middle from left: Clint Williams, Greg Risk, Dan Peavler, Willie Stewart and Mike Seeley. Front from left: Head Coach James Bryant, Frank Oliver, team manager Omar Swartzendruber and student assistant Bob Woods.

Seeley, Oliver, Gray, Fleming, Calkins and Wells rounded out the rest of the team that once again ended the season searching for its first win. At times it seemed like they had buzzard’s luck. Nothing would die and they couldn’t kill anything. They went 0-23. What really got under Bryant’s skin was the lack of support. Hardly anyone amongst the student and faculty population had really cottoned to the idea of college basketball or sports. Students petitioned against Metro athletics, claiming it was too expensive to support.

“The tone was that athletics was a secondary thing to an academic education, and that there would be little budgetary support for (sport) ventures,” Bryant said. “The average age of the student was 27, and they were more interested in getting a degree than a winning basketball team. There was really no support from the campus faculty or administration.”

No budgetary support was the perfect example of negative feedback, and Bryant had to grudgingly accept the sad reality that the stepchild he’d parented wasn’t going to grow without some moolah. So he made the best of what was dealt. On the road, the Roadrunners were left to use state cars and often had to sleep in them, because there wasn’t enough money to stay at a hotel. One time, this traveling predicament left them in a precarious position.

After a two-day, two-game series against Adams State in Alamosa during the 1971-72 season, and with no money to stay overnight in a hotel, Metro drove back Saturday in the dark with a snowstorm; strong wind gusts hurling the whiteness into a howling, blinding rage. The weathermen called for temperatures with the wind-chill factor to reach 46 below. Bryant clutched the steering wheel tight and put his trust in his tallest player.

“It got so bad that I could not see through the wind shield,” Bryant recalled. “We drove over Wolf Creek Pass with my 6-8 center Dan Kenlon hanging his head out of the window giving me directions like ‘Back left coach,’ ‘You are too close to the rail,’ ‘Go slower coach, I can’t see right now.’

“Needless to say, that was stupid, but we did it and we survived.”   

But Americans don’t want to hear about the labor pains, they just want a victory. Finally, after 56 straight losses, Metro got its first against Colorado College 110-92. Then they won another one 114-71 against Rockmont College (now Colorado Christian College). Metro won its third game in a row, beating Colorado College again 85-72. In a small Rocky Mountain News article, Stewart and Smith were credited for controlling the boards. The team finished  with a 5-17 record.

The Roadrunners’ offense that year was geared around Larry Risk , who averaged 20.9 points in 1970-71. The following season, Risk averaged 25.1 points, while shooting 93 percent from the free-throw line and was named NAIA Regional All-American. In conference play, he averaged 29.9 points. He also broke Oliver’s single-game point total by scoring 42 points on 15 field goals. (Neither Risk’s or Oliver’s achievement is listed in Metro’s basketball media guide). And get this, Bryant said half of Risk’s shots came from behind today’s three-point line. The 19-feet 6-inch line didn’t exist in college basketball at the time.

“From a basketball standpoint, Larry Risk was Metro’s first true great basketball player,” Bryant said. “He could have played any where in the country as a shooting guard and been successful.”

By the end of the third year, though, Bryant was taxed emotionally and mentally. Every night, hours after the game, he’d lie in bed grinding his teeth, while the game played through his mind. He might start out by blaming the referees, but ultimately he put the onus on himself. He decided to escape the sidelines.

“I suspect I could have stayed on as coach for several years, and I think, perhaps, that my teams might have eventually started to win more games than they lost,” Bryant said. “I was an assistant professor in the process of being tenured and promoted to associate professor, and frankly I determined that I could make a more positive contribution to students by devoting all my time to teaching.”

“Coach Bryant was an excellent coach,” Wells said. “He didn’t have much to work with. He took the losing hard. Harder than he should have in my view.”

By the time Bryant quit in 1972, the Beatles had broken up and Alan Shepard was playing golf on the moon.

Some things never changed, though. Metro basketball was then and still is a well-kept secret across the nation, but that doesn’t mean the past should be forgotten.

“Present day successes need to not lose sight of the beginnings,” Bryant said. “From the really very limited winning success of the first three years, through a brief time when basketball was eliminated, to present day is a quite a story, and Metro basketball fans need to see the whole picture. I think it helps present day successes look even more grandiose.”

Indeed it does, and, in a sense, the players and coaches from the past are still a part of the team, a team now with two national titles to its name and no longer a stepchild.

“Whether or not you got to play in a championship game, those were your guys out there,” Smith said. “You might not be a part of the team now, but you were once and so you’re a lifelong Roadrunner.”
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Photo by - Danny Holland Sophomore Mark Worthington flies through the air attempting a layup in Metro’s 80-64 home loss to Nebraska-Kearney Jan. 23.

If William Shakespeare can get away with comparing life to a stage, maybe it’s not too outlandish to believe that part of the play takes place on the basketball court.

After all, on the court, every one has a defined role. Lester Strong, though, has had to render his cameo explosions around the hoop to the bench, because the referees disagree with his aggressive nature.

There was no evidence of basketball ballet in Metro’s 72-60 defeat of Fort Hays State Jan. 25, just disciplined, hard nose play. The victory left the Roadrunners with a 14-3 (7-2 RMAC) record and brighter prospects in a season-long search for a team identity. This came after Nebraska-Kearney cast plenty of funk over the Auraria Events Center by discarding Metro in an 80-64 win Jan. 23. It was the fourth time the Lopers  have beaten the Roadrunners in the last 15 games the two have squared off.

“We just didn’t stick to the plan,” Strong said. “We didn’t stick to our discipline and the stuff we did in practice. We went off track and we just started doing things that we shouldn’t have been doing and we knew we had to make that up (against Fort Hays).”

After the loss to fifth-ranked Kearney (16-0; 9-0), media prognosticators announced the passing of the torch in the Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference. But head coach Mike Dunlap was quick to remember that Kearney beat Metro at home last year, only for the Roadrunners to come back and defeat the Lopers in the regional semifinals on their way to a second Division II National title.

“They have an ax to grind against our program, which I totally understand and is good for us,” Dunlap said. “But this is not life-threatening. We will take the lessons and get right back to work.”

The only remaining undefeated squad in Division II, the Lopers are off to their best start ever with a solid cast of juniors and seniors, who have grown up in the program, including pre-season All-American Nick Svehla, who toasted Metro for 22 points and 10 rebounds. But no one had pictured the game unfolding the way it did. After Luke Kendall drained a three to move Metro within three, the Lopers went on a 15-0 run to take a 32-14 lead. It was too much to overcome.

“Once we got down it was an uphill battle, and they are too good a team to play like that,” point guard Clayton Smith said.

Metro’s own preseason All-American mentions, Kendall and senior Patrick Mutombo, struggled to get decent looks at the rim against Kearney’s suffocating defense. Kendall led the Roadrunners with 19 points on 8-of-18 shooting. Mutombo scored 13, shooting 5-of-13 from the field. Dunlap  felt Kendall and Mutombo were rushing and trying to do too much. 

Against Fort Hays (14-3; 6-3), the scoring linchpins let the game come to them. Mutombo led all scorers with 23 points and Kendall added 22.

Strong, a 6-foot-7, 220-pound center, was most noticeable, though. The junior scored 17 points and grabbed 11 rebounds, including five offensive, in the win against the Tigers. Strong put back or tapped in misguided shots and got the crowd revved with a couple of high-flying dunks, one on an alley-oop from Smith, who recorded 11 assists.

Strong was disciplined, too, playing 32 minutes, 12 above his season average. Against Kearney,  he fouled out for the sixth time this season, after only playing 20 minutes, and the Roadrunners are not as effective on the glass without his presence. The Lopers won the board battle 33-27, which doesn’t look like much of a difference, but consider Metro averages a league-low 19.7 defensive rebounds a game.

“That has more to do with me than Lester, in terms of strategy,” Dunlap admitted, adding that Metro’s pressure defensive often leaves Strong vulnerable. “It’s hard to get 11 boards in 17 minutes, but if he can stay in the game 30-to-31 minutes, then he has that kind of impact. A lot of that has to with just trying to protect him and not let him get into foul trouble. If that means we don’t press as much, I’ll give the press away to keep him in the game.”

While the Roadrunners learned a lot of lessons this past week, one being confidence feels better when you win, Dunlap, a two-time national coach of the year, has learned the most.

“Whether you win or lose, you can take those as how to coach your team and the adjustments are ongoing throughout the year,” he said. “Like last year, I learned some things at the very end on what to do with that personnel. (This year) I’m just figuring our team out, with the eight new players. It’s like a chess game. There are certain things that you don’t want to do that will lead to what you should be doing. And it takes me an incredibly long time to learn how to coach each team.”

Don’t close the curtains just yet, Shakespeare.
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Women ballers exploit top D
Metro breaks down Hays after loss to Nebraska-Kearney
by Eric Eames
The Metropolitan

Natasha Molock

If Natasha Molock doesn’t win Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference Player-of-the-Week, someone has an oar out of water. At least that is one man’s opinion.

After watching the junior guard turn in two stellar all-around performances, including a team piggy-back ride in the first half against Fort Hays State, Metro women’s head basketball coach Dave Murphy doesn’t see any player more deserving.

“If she doesn’t get player-of-the-week,” Murphy said, “there is something wrong.”

In a 73-60 loss to Nebraska-Kearney Jan. 23, Molock scored a team-high 14 points to go with seven steals. She followed that performance two days later with 20 points, six steals and six rebounds in a 76-62 win against Fort Hays, a victory that kept the Roadrunners over the watermark with a 9-8 (6-3 RMAC) record. With games against Regis University (12-5; 7-2) and Chadron State (8-9; 5-4) forthcoming, the battle for the final RMAC playoff spot rests on every game. 

Photo by - Danny Holland Metro junior Kristin Hein attempts to score against the Lopers’ Heather Steffen Jan. 23. The Roadrunners lost at home, 73-60.

“Our team has a lot of ups and downs,” senior Malene Lindholm said. “This season we’ve shown that once we get on a winning streak we can be really good. We had a couple of bad losses that we shouldn’t have, but that’s good, because then you play harder, you play smarter.... From here on it is very important that we just take over the rest of the games and try to win them all. I think we can definitely do it. We’ve shown that when we play up to our potential, we are dangerous and can beat any team in the conference.”

Metro was able to exploit the 14th-best defense in the country in Fort Hays (11-4; 6-3), who regularly gives up a league-low 55.2 points a game. But Metro disproved the statistics.

The Roadrunners opened the court with feds to the high-post or driving inside and kicking the ball out. Molock started the scoring with a downy-soft 15-foot jumper, then went on to school Fort Hays for 17 first half points and five steals; each steal was a prelude to a layup  for Metro.

“She took the whole team and put them on her back,” Murphy said. “She single-handedly said, ‘Coach I’m going to carry us in the first half.’ ”

Audaciously, Molock sparks the Roadrunners with intense pressure defense—flying around, creating havoc, always stabbing at the ball. The 5-foot-5 Molock is averaging more than four steals a game, good enough to be recognized as a top defender in the RMAC. 

“She just strikes fear into the opponent’s guards because they never know when she is going to pick their pocket,” Murphy added. “What a treat she is offensively and defensively.”

Defense led to turnovers and easy points in the second half against Fort Hays. The Roadrunners  scored 18 points off 11 Tiger turnovers to take command. However, playing the full 40 minutes was something Metro failed to do against Kearney (14-3; 9-0), the only team with a unbroken conference record. After building an eight-point led in the first eight minutes against the Lopers, Metro went into halftime hanging on to a 33-31 lead.

“We missed several opportunities to be up by 10 or 12 and put them in a hole,” Murphy said.

The Roadrunners came out flat in the second half, quickly losing the lead three minutes into it on the fifth three of the day from Loper sophomore Taryn Ninemire, who scored 19 points. Kearney’s lead mushroomed to 20 points, as the Roadrunners never regained their first-half energy. Mostly, Metro had no answer for the inside presence of junior Allison Kruger and freshman Kalee Modlin. Combined, they scored 38 points. The Roadrunners were outscored 32-12 in the paint.

“We knew we were going to have play pretty solid,” Murphy said. “Our problem was, we played pretty solid for about 25 minutes.”

It was a certainly a winnable game for Metro, who has already beaten Mesa State, last year’s RMAC Champion.

“We should have definitely won,” said Lindholm, who combined to score 25 points during the past week. “They are a very beatable team, hopefully at Kearney (Feb. 27) we will beat them.”
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Last-minute design changes have delayed the opening of the new Auraria campus fitness center.

The new fitness center, which will feature new equipment and televisions, was supposed to open when classes began for the spring semester, but now may not open until April. A brand-new audio/video system is being added to enhance the overall design, and construction will begin moving ahead after the changes have been incorporated into the overall plans. Tony Price, director of campus recreation, believes that the changes will be worth waiting for.

“Originally, we anticipated that we would be finished by now,” Price said. “But after talking with other colleagues, we decided the benefits associated with adding a full audio/visual system was well worth the costs and will further add to the health club environment of the new gym.”

The new gym will be more spacious and club-like, with students able to watch television while running on a treadmill or listening to music through headphones.

According to Price, $255,000 has been approved by the Student Adivosory Commitee to the Auraria Board to fund the project. This money comes from the Auraria Bond Fee that is paid by all students at registration. The addition of the audio/visual equipment will cost approximately $9,000 plus construction costs. The money for these changes will be coming from the department of campus recreation that is funded by fees paid by students at all three Auraria campus schools.

Construction of the new fitness center will take place while classes are in session, but Price said it should not have a huge impact on those who are using the current facilities.

“No classes will be disrupted, and weights and exercise equipment will not be affected during construction,” Price said. “Other spaces are being set up for aerobics classes.”

Classes may not be affected, but the design changes have impacted those involved in the project. Jill Carlston, designer/planner for AHEC, has been unable to finalize her plans because of the recent changes. Still, she appreciates the effort taken to make sure the final product meets everyone’s needs.

“(Price) has done a good job getting the pieces together and really knows what the students are looking for,” Carlston said.

Students have been involved in this project from the initial planning stages that began over a year ago. Now, they are eager to see this project completed.

“When I came back a week before (classes started), I saw no work had been done. I was told there had been changes,” said Sean Jenson, the SACAB representative for the University of Colorado at Denver. “I just want to make sure it gets done. It’s been quite a while.”

Jenson is unsure how the changes will affect students but knows that they are upset about the delays.

“It was a big deal to a lot of students I talked to,” Jensen added. “They were looking forward to a decent fitness facility.”

The largest impact to students will be during the estimated six-week construction project when gym space will be limited. During special events in the main gym, auxiliary gym space will not be available for use. Currently, the racquetball courts are being converted into a multipurpose room that will be available until construction begins. This will be the eventual site for the new fitness center.

Once complete, the equipment from the old fitness center will be moved into the new location along with recently purchased items, including 10 upright fitness cycles, three new treadmills and an elliptical trainer. For now, the equipment will have to remain in storage until designs are finalized and construction can be completed.

“It’s been a bit frustrating, but I think in the long run the changes we made are really going to benefit our users,” Price said.
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Metro soccer’s sensational freshmen
Allen, Leichliter took league by storm in first year
by Donald Smith
The Metropolitan

If the saying “defense wins championships” rings true, then it is easy to see why the No. 4 Metro women’s soccer team enjoyed its best season ever, not to mention the records that fell.

Now at the end of her first season, freshman goalkeeper Mandy Allen has already cemented herself in the books as one of the best keepers in school history. She is No. 1 with a goals-against average of 0.52 and recorded the most individual shutouts in a single season with 12. Overall, Allen is tied for third in career shutouts and tied for fifth in goalie wins with 16. While she didn’t get what she wanted in a national title, Allen was able to gain recognition as the best goalie in Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference.

“Virginia Beach was cool,” Allen said, when asked about the Final Four at Virginia Beach, Va.  “We didn’t get the result we wanted, but we still played really well.”

Although the accolades sound nice, Allen seems accustomed to receiving such high statue awards. At Stanley Lake High, Allen won two MVP honors, a first team All-Conference selection (2001-2002) and MetroNorth Newspaper All-Region Team selection (2002).

Coming to Metro, Allen was in a three-way battle for the starting goalie job, with former junior Danielle English and current freshman Beckee Flynn. But midway through the season, Allen started to take control of the minutes, and by playoff time, took over the starting role. In the playoffs, Allen, with the aid of the amazing defenders in front of her, held high scoring offenses Regis (0 goals), West Texas A&M (1), Central Oklahoma (0), University of California-Davis (0) and the eventual Division II National Champions Christian Brothers (1) to either slim or no goals. Head coach Danny Sanchez was asked about his decision that made Allen the team’s starting net minder.

“Initially she was splitting time with our other goalkeeper Beckee Flynn and they were very even,” Sanchez said. “Beckee got hurt at a game at Fort Lewis, and the next weekend we beat Regis and Southern Colorado here and (Allen) performed very well. Then we went out to Texas and she had a very good game against Central Oklahoma, who was the No. 1 team in the region at the time, and then really after that she kind of took a strangle-hold to the position and really didn’t let it go.”  

 But with all this success in year one, will it mount to even greater pressure for next season?

“There’ll be some pressure but not just on me but the entire team,” Allen said. “Every team is a different team so we’ll just have to see what happens [next season].”

Allen said she will focus more on ball distribution next season, while trying to improve every part of her game.

Leichliter Scores Away

Amy Leichliter

On the other hand, defense is only as good as the lead it is called upon to hold, and Amy Leichliter helped Allen gain many leads to protect.

Leichliter, also a freshman, came into the season not really knowing how she would be used, but it wouldn’t take very long for her stats to inquire how she should be used. She broke loose early in the season knocking home three goals in the Montana State-Billings Tournament. The forward was one of the offensive sparks that started the “Road Warriors” theme when Metro didn’t lose a road game during September.

Leichliter also had great timing. She scored a dramatic game-winning goal in the overtime period against Colorado Christian, giving the Roadrunners their first regular-season conference title. Leichliter also put home the goal that sent the Roadrunners to the Final Four. Even though she couldn’t extend her heroics against Christian Brothers in the Final Four, she said, “It was definitely a great experience, and it’s one of our goals for next year (to go back to the Final Four). It is something to strive for again and hopefully next year we’ll come out and at least get a chance to play for the National Championship.”

With Leichliter’s 20 goals, an RMAC best, she was only a few goals behind the all-time leader in school history for goals in a season, which is 23 by Bridgette Leisure.

This offseason, Leichliter plans on working on becoming a playmaker, racking up assists along with the goals.

“I think Amy came into preseason and we weren’t really sure what to expect,” Sanchez said. “But right out of the gate she was performing at a high level and really towards the end of the year was our go-to person, scoring a lot of big goals for us, was our leading goal scorer with 20 goals as a freshman, which is a tremendous accomplishment. But really from day one she had earned a starting spot and held onto it.”

Truly, with numbers like these: 0.52 goals against average, 16 wins and 12 shutouts coming from Allen, and 20 goals from Leichliter, Metro’s chances of returning back to the playoffs are heightened. But then you add four 2002 All-RMAC selections, a great defense, two additional top 10 scoring threats in Melissa Miller and Joslyn Brough, and a Coach-of-the-Year in Sanchez, and Allen’s duty could be simplified to play and play well and Leichliter’s to run, shoot and score.

Next year’s team should be as good or better, but as far as elite freshmen earning a starting spot becoming a trend, Sanchez said that the 11 players producing will start and as far as the Roadrunner faithful are concerned, whatever 11 start, will win.
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