The team, which has beaten four teams ranked in the top 20 this season, is now 9-1 overall and 1-0 in the Big Ten and the success is showing for players off the field.

Junior midfielder Jeamie Deacon won the fourth Big Ten Offensive Player of the Week award of her career and the second conference honor for the team this season. Junior goalkeeper Elissa Unger was awarded the Big Ten Defensive Player of the Week award earlier this year.

“She deserves it, she’s been working so hard,” Ciliberti said of Deacon. “She’s been a really strong leader to this team. It’s so nice to know we’re getting the recognition and she deserves it.”

Head coach Rolf van de Kerkhof said the award shows the team is playing together.

“It shows we continue to score as a group,” van de Kerkhof said. “Jeamie’s fortunate to get the goal or two goals or the number of goals she needs, but indirectly it’s an award for the team because we set each other up for scoring opportunities. Somebody has to put them in.”

This weekend, the team hosts its first conference game of the season against Indiana.

The Hoosiers (5-4, 0-1) have played some tough competition this year, including leading then-No. 2 Wake Forest for the first half of their match before dropping the game 2-1. Add that they are in the Big Ten and Indiana could give MSU troubles, van de Kerkhof said.

“Indiana is conference play,” van de Kerkhof said. “If you want to stay on schedule for a potential hopes of winning the conference, you have to take care of your opponent, doesn’t matter if they’re ranked or unranked. I expect a strong Indiana team coming out here to get their first W in Big Ten play. We got to be ready for them.”

On Sunday, the team faces Temple, another team that could cause troubles for the Spartans.

“You can’t overlook anybody these days,” van de Kerkhof said. “If you look at the scores, small teams upset big teams just like in football. So we’ve got to do our scouting and we’ve been watching some film already on both teams, we’re not done yet.”