DENVER – When Rachel Zollner Tabbal was in goal for the dominant MSU Denver women's soccer teams of the early 2000s, she would have rather not been noticed.
 
"I think most people would say that I'm definitely someone who would rather be in the background doing the things need to be done," she said. "Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed getting a big-time save. But I think any goalkeeper would tell you it's better if you can manage the situation in front of you without have to make those saves. Keeping a defensive backline isn't very flashy, but I think we usually did that."
 
Zollner didn't go unnoticed during her three-season run at MSU Denver, twice earning NCAA Division II All-America honors as a key piece in the Roadrunners' 2006 national championship team.
 
Named to the 12-player Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference All-Century Team in 2009, she's MSU Denver's all-time leader with 60 wins (60-6-3) and ranks second with 36 shutouts. She played for teams that were a combined 63-6-3, including 36-1-1 in regular-season RMAC play.
 
On Sept. 28, Zollner Tabbal will be inducted into the Roadrunners Athletics Hall of Fame, along with women's basketball All-American Vanessa Edwards, volleyball star Julie Green, men's soccer All-American Scott Grode, and men's soccer star and longtime women's soccer assistant coach Dave Morgan. The 7 p.m. ceremony at the Springhill Suites at MSU Denver follows a 6 p.m. social hour. Tickets are still available, though a sellout is expected.
 
Then just Rachel Zollner, the goalkeeper from Highlands Ranch, Colo., originally went to Stanford out of high school 2003. She redshirted due to injury her first season, then decided to transfer following a change in the coaching staff. She would have been unable to play the following year anyway due to her injury, and took classes at Arapahoe Community College while weighing her options in the 2004-05 academic year.
 
Though not as prestigious academically as Stanford, she took a look at MSU Denver, which won its first national championship in the fall of 2004.
 
"It ended up being a really good fit for me," she said. "I was able to stay close to home, and I'd already done the out-of-state thing. … It was a little tricky because I was already a junior, but I had just taken general stuff at Stanford and at the community college. I decided I liked math and it was a degree I could get in a reasonable amount of time. … But it certainly wasn't a breeze."
 
Needless to say, Zollner fit in seamlessly on the field.
 
"Rachel was a big-time goalkeeper for us," said legendary former MSU Denver coach Danny Sanchez said, now the head coach at Colorado. "I've coached a lot of great goalkeepers between Metro, Wyoming and CU, and Rachel is right at the top with all of them.
 
"We were coming off a national championship in '04, and she came in for '05 and was unbelievable from Day One with her shot-blocking, her distribution, and her leadership."
 
That first season, Zollner was 22-0-1 with 12 shutouts, an 0.46 goals-against average and an .873 save percentage. The Roadrunners were ranked No. 1 in Division II but were stunned in the quarterfinals of the NCAA Tournament, losing to eventual national runner-up Seattle Pacific on penalty kicks after the teams had played to a 0-0 tie.
 
"It was very disappointing," Zollner Tabbal said. "I remember we were all heartbroken, but we had still played really well."
 
That set the stage for the 2006 season, when Adrianne Almaraz Pietz – a captain on the 2004 national champions – returned to the program as an assistant coach.
 
"It was cool to see someone that young who was that determined," Pietz said. "She lived by it – in her trainings, in the games, in the classroom – aand she was a great teammate. Everybody respected her because of how she lived, how she did things and how she carried herself.
 
"Her demeanor was quieter, because she's a soft-spoken, easy-going person, but she also had a very high level of expectation on and off the field."
 
The Roadrunners opened the 2006 season with 12 straight victories before a 2-1 loss at Texas A&M Commerce on Oct. 1, snapping an NCAA Division II record-tying streak of 59 consecutive games without a loss.
 
"The '05 team was arguably our most talented team, and we lost a lot of great players off that team," Sanchez said. "So in the '06 season, there were a lot of question marks around our team, and we lost a couple of games during the regular season, which was almost unheard of at that time. But with Rachel, the backs in front of her, and some great leadership up top, we came back and won a national championship."
 
That second loss came on Oct. 22, a 2-1 home setback against Fort Lewis in the RMAC Tournament that ended Division II records runs of 61 straight home wins (still standing) and 61 straight unbeaten at home (broken in 2014).
 
But the Roadrunners regrouped and eventually reached the national championship game in Pensacola, Fla., against Grand Valley State (Mich.). Zollner made a spectacular 1-on-1 save at 42:06, back-to-back saves at 49:33 and 49:38, and another at 54:54.
 
"In that championship game, against Grand Valley – they were good – and at times they were outplaying us," Pietz said. "And Rachel single-handedly kept us in that game. That's what a great goalkeeper does. When their time comes, they do. A big part of us winning that game was her ability in goal."
 
Kira Sharp's overtime goal at 93:39 gave the Roadrunners their second national title. Zollner was 23-2-0 with 13 shutouts, an 0.42 GAA and an .878 save percentage.
 
MSU Denver was outstanding again in 2007, going 16-4-2 overall and 10-1-1 for another RMAC regular season championship before falling in the second round of the NCAA Tournament – on penalty kicks – against Incarnate Word (Texas).
 
She was 15-4-2 with 11 shutouts, an 0.57 GAA and an .852 save percentage to win RMAC Defensive Player of the Year in 2007. Not surprisingly, she was also named to the Academic All-America first team for a second consecutive season.
 
After graduation, Zollner earned a scholarship from the NCAA and went to graduate school at Northern Colorado, earning a master's in sport and exercise science and sport administration. She worked for the United States Olympic Committee for a couple of years, focusing on the paralympic side with camps and events for injured service members.
 
Married in 2011, she taught math for three years, and has since focused on raising a family with husband Alex. They have five children: sons Shehadeh, 11, and Simeon, 1 ½, and daughters Sofia, 9, Siobhan, 8, and Sasha, 6. They've lived in Raleigh, N.C., and family has relocated as well. She home schools her four eldest children.
 
Zollner Tabbal and her eldest son will be making their first trip back to Denver since moving in 2016.
 
"I'm just really honored, and I was very surprised to get the phone call (about the Hall of Fame), because to me it feels like it was so long ago," Zollner Tabbal said. "How can anyone remember that — least of all me?"
 
True to her nature, Zollner Tabbal hadn't made much mention of her playing days over the years.
 
"It was kind of fun to link the announcement to some of my different friends here, and they were like 'What? Who are you?'" she said. "It's been fun to have my previous life renewed and come back and almost make it more cohesive."