Playing at home in the first round of the Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference Shootout is a lofty goal for most teams, but not the defending RMAC Shootout champion Colorado State University-Pueblo ThunderWolves. 

CSU-Pueblo finished the RMAC regular season in fourth place and will play fifth-place Metropolitan State College on Tuesday night at Massari Arena. 

“We know anything can happen because we’ve gone on the road two of the last three years and won,” said CSU-Pueblo coach Kip Drown of the RMAC Shootout.

The game is scheduled to tip-off at 7 p.m.  

CSU-Pueblo won its only matchup with Metro State on Jan. 16, 63-54 in Denver.

“We beat them at their place, but that was in early January,” Drown said. “They’ve gotten better and we’ve gotten better, so we’re just going to come out here and play.”

Amanda Bartlett led the Pack attack with a career-high 21 points and eight rebounds against Metro State.

The ThunderWolves enter postseason play on a five-game winning streak and won eight of their final 10 games. The two losses came at the hands of first-place Fort Lewis College.

If CSU-Pueblo is victorious over Metro State, there is a good chance they will face Fort Lewis in the RMAC Shootout semifinals Friday afternoon. 

Last season, the ThunderWolves upset top-ranked Fort Lewis 70-68 in the RMAC semifinals and defeated the University of Nebraska-Kearney 70-52 in the championship game to advance to the Division II North Central Regional. CSU-Pueblo’s season ended in the first round against the University of South Dakota  66-55. 

Metro State brings a three-game winning streak to Pueblo while winning five of its last six games.

The Roadrunners are led by Megan Sinclair and Rae Bean. Sinclair averages 14.3 points per game and both players each average a team-leading 5.7 rebounds per game. 

Free tickets for the game will be given to the first 100 students who request them. The tickets will be distributed at the CSU-Pueblo Athletics office at Massari Arena beginning at 8:30 a.m. on Monday.