The basketball team wasn’t the only MSU sports team that had a rough time this past weekend.
The MSU baseball team, which was on a four-game winning streak entering its three-game series against Purdue last weekend, now finds itself on a losing streak after dropping all three games played with the Boilermakers.
The Spartans (12-11 overall, 2-4 Big Ten) will try and get back on the winning track when they host Saginaw Valley State in a doubleheader at 2 p.m. today at Kobs Field.
MSU head coach Ted Mahan said poor play by his team, bad luck and superior Boilermaker pitching were what did the Spartans in against Purdue.
“They played better than we did and they certainly deserved to win,” he said. “This is the first time all year we’ve been disappointed with our team.”
Junior third baseman and tri-captain Troy Bergman said the Spartans simply couldn’t get any aspect of their game going against Purdue.
“We didn’t play as good as we have been playing,” he said. “Offensively we struggled, the pitching struggled a little bit, altogether it was pretty frustrating - nothing came together for us. Hopefully it was just a one weekend thing.”
Bergman said today’s games against Saginaw Valley State will be a good opportunity to pick up a couple of wins and some confidence heading into MSU’s weekend series against Big Ten power Minnesota.
“We’re just looking to win two tomorrow - it doesn’t matter who we are playing,” he said. “A (win) is going to be a (win), but I’m sure if we win convincingly, that will help with our confidence.”
Junior pitcher/infielder Kyle Geswein said despite the setbacks against the Boilermakers, the team is remaining positive and will try to use the adversity it faced this past weekend as a good lesson for the future.
“It’s good because obviously you can’t win them all,” he said. “You’ve got to learn from your mistakes and you can’t get down. It’s definitely a character builder.”
Geswein said the key to today’s games will be learning from the mistakes the Spartans made against Purdue.
“We’re just looking tomorrow to try and do the things we didn’t do over the weekend,” he said.
