ROADRUNNERS ON DECK April 15 Men and Women’s Tennis at Mesa State 2 p.m. April 18-20 Men and Women’s RMAC Tennis Tournament at University of Colorado-Colorado Springs April 18 Baseball at Colorado Mines 3 p.m. April 19 Baseball at Colorado Mines Double Header 1 p.m. April 20 Baseball at Colorado Mines Noon April 22 Baseball at Air Force Academy 2 p.m. WEEKLY RESULTS April 8 Baseball lost at Northern Colorado 9-31 Men Tennis wins at Colorado Mines 8-1 April 9 Men and Women’s Tennis vs. Colorado Christian Men: W 8-1 Women: W 8-1 April 10 Women’s Tennis lost at Air Force Academy 1-5 April 11 Baseball wins at Nebraska-Kearney 7-4 Men and Women’s Tennis vs. Southern Colorado Men: W 9-0 Women: W 9-0 April 12 Baseball at Nebraska-Kearney GAME 1: L 6-11 GAME 2: W 10-2 Men and Women’s Tennis vs. Colorado College and UCCS Men: W 9-0, 9-0 Women: W 9-0, 9-0 April 13 Baseball lost at Nebraska-Kearney 10-12

The Metro men and women’s tennis teams beat both Colorado College and University of Colorado-Colorado Springs in 9-0 routs  April 12 at Auraria Campus.

The men’s team also toppled Southern Colorado 9-0 April 11, and Colorado Christian 8-1 April 10, to improve their undefeated Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference record to 5-0 (13-3 overall).

With the wins, the men were able to lock up their fourth RMAC regular-season title in five years.

The women, ranked No. 33 in Division II, also beat Colorado Christian 8-1 and bounced back from their first loss of the season, a 5-1 decision to Air Force April 10, to blank Southern Colorado 9-0. They’ll look to clinch their second-straight RMAC title with a win over Mesa State April 15.

The most recent national ranking is the highest the Metro women have ever been ranked in school history. They are also ranked as the No. 1 team in the North Central Regional.

Individually, sophomore Hande Gorur is ranked No. 16 nationally and No. 1 regionally in singles play, while junior Jasmon Crabb is ranked No. 23 and No. 2, respectively.

Gorur and Crabb also form the second-best doubles team in the region, No. 18 in the nation, while Rebecca Meares and her sister Jess are the No. 5 doubles team in the region.

On the men’s side, the Roadrunners are ranked No. 3 in the same region and sophomore Magnus Bohman is ranked No. 5 regionally.

Against Colorado College, the men’s Carlos Delgado and James Schumacher, who are the No. 6 team in the region, placed 70 percent of their serves and fought through a few cold spells to dominate Troy Rahner and Naren Clark.

On the second court, partners Jojo Mmopi and Bohman rode to an easy victory, 8-1, over Brad Miller and Perry Wright. Karabo Makgale and Andre Nilsson stopped a late surge by Andrew Appell and Tim Macguire to win 8-5 in the third doubles pairing.

In singles, Bohman got into a groove early against Clark. Taking advantage of Clark’s inconsistent serve and forcing Clark to return fast shots at alternate corners, Bohman dominated most every volley of four shots or more. Clark’s soft cross-court backhands also kept Bohman in the driver’s seat as Bohman won the sets handily, 6-2, 6-2.

In the No. 2 singles pairing, Delgado fought off a cold streak at the end of the second set to beat Rahner 6-2 and 7-5.

Dominant in the first set, Delgado showed excellent court sense and placed his shots marvelously.

During the second set, Rahner made many of Delgado’s errors good and took the lead 5-4, showing a toughness not apparent in the early going. But after several games in which he consistently overshot the baseline, Delgado kept the ball down and dropped it for two final games to win the tiebreaker.

The UCCS doubles teams fell 8-4, 8-5, and 8-4 respectively as Metro’s top pairs took control of the match from the start.

Tim Hurlbert and Adam Stratton served inconsistently and suffered at the hands of Schumacher’s front-court returns.

In sets with much potential unseen on the scorecard, Bohman trounced Ronnie Stutz 6-1 and 6-0.

Photo by - Will Moore Metro’s No. 23 nationally ranked women's singles tennis player Jasmon Crabb returns the ball during an April 11 match against Southern Colorado at Auraria.

Stutz’s serve was exceptional, but he only placed it 20 percent of the time. When Stutz did place his serve, Bohman had difficulty making a fair return. It was clear that had Stutz placed even half of his serves, the match would have been bitterly contested to the last point.

Forced to ease off in an attempt to avoid double faults because of wavering accuracy, Stutz quickly fell prey to Bohman’s dominant volley skills.

In sets laced with hot and cold streaks on both sides of the net, Hurlbert and Delgado squared off in an exciting second court battle. Delgado’s strong serve, reliable volley and instinct for positioning made the difference as he found ways to sneak shots past Hurlbert’s front-court play.

Brilliant near the net, Hurlbert’s reflexes won him several games as he seldom let a shot get past him when he gained the service line.

Photo by - Will Moore Sophomore Magnus Bohman, Metro's No. 1 men's singles players, returns a shot in an April 11 match against Southern Colorado at Auraria.

Delgado’s quickness, however, showcased the turning point when the senior picked a low dribbler three feet from the net and lofted it at a difficult angle.

After winning that point, Delgado’s confidence swelled and his grip on the match tightened slowly but surely, bringing him to a 6-4, 6-3 victory.

With their win, the Metro men clenched the RMAC title for the third consecutive year. They now prepare for their final road swing at Mesa State April 15 and will return home for games May 4 and 5 in the first round of the Division II National Tournament.

Head tennis coach Eduardo Provencio is confident that both of his teams will win on the road against Mesa, hoping the final game primes them for the playoffs, which starts with the conference championship tournament April 18-20, at UCCS. 

Having missed many days of practice due to the blizzard, Provencio said that he would like to see his teams have a few more games under their belt than they will prior to starting championship play.

However, Provencio also said that he has a very gifted squad capable of getting hot enough to compete with the best of Division II on any given day.
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In the laundry room toward the back of Metro head baseball coach Vince Porreco’s “office,” which is just a desk stuck in the corner of a storage unit, the washer churns and foams with soap that strangely leaks and oozes down the side. Hanging in rows are blue and white uniforms dripping dry.

After Northern Colorado gangster-slapped the Roadrunners 31-9 April 8, and a ho-hum weekend series against conference catfish Nebraska-Kearney, Metro’s own preseason expectations, like their game jerseys, are hanging upside.

“Our team had a ton of potential and still has a ton of potential with the players we have, it just hasn’t come through for all season,” said junior outfielder Brian Edwards, who is batting .399. “The expectations were definitely going to

regionals and be able to succeed through regionals. Coming in we had a lot of good players, we have a lot of good potential on the team; we just haven’t played up to that potential.”

Metro is unranked in the West Region and sits fourth in the Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference Standings at 7-9 (20-17 overall) with 13 games left to play. New Mexico Highlands echoes behind them with a 5-7 conference record and only the top four teams enter the RMAC Championship Tournament in May.

If the Roadrunners can win out, Porreco believes they move up to at least second in the conference. However, even if Metro goes undefeated the rest of the way, a distinct possibility given the team’s continued struggles on the pitching mound and defensively, it won’t be enough for them to crack into the regional tournament. Winning the conference tournament might not be enough either as they learned last year when they were snubbed from making a NCAA tournament appearance.

Photo by - Danny Holland Senior Dan Morasci pitches to a Fort Hays player during the first game of their doubleheader on April 5. Morasci threw a complete game at Nebraska-Kearney in a 10-2 win April 12.

“We just have to do our job and not worry about the other teams,” Porreco said. “There is still some season left and right now some guys have to play for a little bit of pride and put things together. Obviously, a lot of things have to happen in order for us to win conference.”

Northern Colorado’s shellacking broke one Division II team record and tied three others, none of which included the 18 runs the Bears scored in the bottom of the seventh. That is surprisingly only the sixth-best single inning effort.

“It was a situation I’ve never been associated with in my life, to see that many runs scored in just one inning,” said the 11th-year head coach. “Everything we threw up, they just hit.” 

The Bears’ 35 total bases in the inning broke a Division II record held by Metro when they totaled 31 bases in a 1989 win against Colorado College. The Bears also tied national records for homeruns (six), hits (15) and grand slams (two) in an inning. The Roadrunners used four pitchers in the nightmare seventh.

“Can we act like that game never happened?,” said James Edwards, the team’s homerun (nine) and batting leader (.433). “Not much to say when you lose 31-9.”

The Roadrunners had to quickly leave the

carnage behind as they traveled to Kearney two days later for a four-game series that they split with the Lopers.

Showing no ill effects, Metro beat Kearney (14-23; 4-12 RMAC) 7-4 April 11, getting seven strong innings from starter Blake Eager, whose record improved to 6-2, while Brad Swartzlander picked up the save. James Edwards collected two RBIs with his ninth homerun, while C.J. Brown and Clint Cleland went a combined 4-for-8 and scored three runs to set the table.

The other win came in Game 2 of an April 12 doubleheader. With the bases loaded in the third, Metro senior Jared Devine stepped to the plate and promptly doubled to center field to clear the bases. Devine moved to third on a sacrifice bunt and scored on a sacrifice fly to give the Roadrunners a 6-1 lead, which expanded to 10-2 for the final score.

Along with Devine, who hit fifth, the

bottom part of Metro’s lineup collected six hits, nine RBIs and scored five times. 

“(Devine) had the bases loaded and hit a double and scored three runs and that is what we need out of all of our guys and Jared came through,” Porreco said. “Sometimes the game is won by how the six, seven, eight and nine hole guys do, not necessarily the (top of the order), because those guys in the later order are going to have guys on base.”

In the losses, though, Metro couldn’t put all three parts of the game together, where the

pitching, defense and hitting compliment each other. The Roadrunners all know how talented they are, but for the most of the season, and they’ll be the first to agree, Metro has often played like a undisciplined high school orchestra, each section riffing at a different tune.

“In order for all cylinders to be clicking, all three things need to be happening,” Porreco said. “You make an error, the pitcher gets on the mound gets another ground ball. They score two, we come back and we score three.

“It’s just coming together and playing together and playing like it is a 0-0 ball game. It is just taking some time for us to really grasp it and to understand that we do have a good club.”

In the 11-6 loss in Game 1 of the

doubleheader, Metro’s pitching staff gave up five runs in the third. In the 12-10 loss April 13, after being up 6-0, the Roadrunners spotted the Lopers eight runs in the fourth. The defense was equally unequal to the task, botching balls with three errors, allowing Kearney to extend the inning.

“We walked lead off hitters and you cannot walk lead off hitters,” Porreco said. “You have to get the first guy out. Then we had opportunities to make some plays and we just didn’t make the plays. And when you don’t make plays, one hit now turns into four runs.

“The story of our season is we have been giving up the big inning and when you give up the big inning and you don’t nip it in the butt both pitching wise and defensive wise. You lose ball games.”

While several hitters remain on torrid streaks, especially the two Edwards, Metro has missed its own opportunities as well.

“I can’t speak for everyone else, but we have left a lot of runners on base all year,” Brian Edwards said. “We’ve had chances to win a lot of games and we haven’t.”
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