Any hopes the MSU women’s soccer team had of continuing its season were lost Monday when the NCAA announced the 64 teams that will make up the tournament bracket.
But the men’s soccer team still has four days to wait and hope that its season had that little extra spark that would push it into the 48-team bracket.
The men haven’t been in the tournament since 1969, though in 1967 and 1968 the team was NCAA co-champions.
The goalkeeper for the co-champion teams, MSU’S current head coach Joe Baum, said he believes this team could hold its own against the teams he played on.
“I think if you look at our team today, we don’t have any All-Americans, but we’re more solid throughout the lineup,” he said. “I think our 10 field players and our goalie are, depth-wise, better than that team.”
The men’s team garnered a 12-5-1 record through the Big Ten Tournament, picking up two wins in the tournament against Ohio State and Penn State.
The team finished the weekend with a 2-0 loss in the championship game to an Indiana team that will likely finish its season undefeated against Big Ten opponents, but the effort was a good end to the tournament, senior midfielder Anders Kelto said.
“With our strong showing at the Big Ten Tournament we kind of put a final stamp on a good season,” Kelto said.
And the men still think the championship game may not have been the last of the season, Kelto said.
“You don’t want to be too optimistic for fear of the worst happening, but I’ve been to the tournament the last three years with Brown,” Kelto said. “I think I have a pretty good sense of which teams will and will not get in, and I like our chances.”
This year the tournament will include 48 teams, an increase from the 32 historically included.
The Spartans hope the extra 16 teams will give them the opportunity they need.
“If it was at 32, we wouldn’t be optimistic, we would be somewhat doubtful,” Baum said.
That increase could be enough to get the men over the barricade that kept the women’s team from the NCAA Women’s Soccer Tournament.
The women’s team saw ups and downs over its 10-8-2 season, but with a winning record and an offensive revival at the end of the season, the team had held hopes for a tournament bid.
“What was really nice to see, and I think what gave our team confidence as we moved forward and gave our seniors some satisfaction as they ended their careers, was we got going a little bit offensively,” head coach Tom Saxton said.
The Spartans lost 2-0 to Michigan in the first round of the Big Ten Tournament but finished their season strong with three wins in the final three games of the regular season, earning a couple of individual achievements in the process.
Sophomore forward Tiffany Laskowski and sophomore defenseman Andrea Sied were named second team All-Big Ten.
“Individual awards are individual awards, but it’s recognition for our program, and they certainly are by far two of our main players,” Saxton said. “They had very good years.”
But it was not enough to earn a spot in the tournament.
Saxton speculated it may have been the poor showing in the Big Ten that led to the absence of MSU in the NCAA.
“It really came down to the results against the Big Ten teams that finished ahead of us in the standings,” Saxton said. “We knew going into the Big Ten Tournament we needed to get results in those games to make the selection committee take note.”
But Saxton said the expectations are high for next year.
“We’ll be more mature and it’s the most talented team we’ve had here,” he said. “We’re going to have a tougher schedule next year so there’ll be more challenges, but I think the year of maturity with this core group will mean a lot to us.”
