If the first four games of the Big Ten season are any indication of how MSU's season will go, finishing in the top half of the league won't be a problem.
The Spartans baseball team dominated the Hawkeyes over the weekend, recording the team's first four-game sweep since 1990 while earning the conference's top spot.
"We'd certainly rather be there than the alternative," head coach Ted Mahan said. "Everybody is going to be shooting for us. Everyone is going to say, 'Hey, we've got to pay attention to that team now.'
"If we get rained out the rest of the year, we win the championship."
The jubilation was visible after the series ended, as the team posed for pictures on the field because of the rare sweep. And the smiles on the faces weren't just for the photographer.
MSU feels it can't lose.
"It's a great feeling," said junior right fielder Travis Gulick, who extended his hitting streak to 19 games on Sunday. "The confidence level is real high right now. We're all having fun, and that's what baseball is about."
After starting the season 4-10, the Spartans (13-10) have taken advantage of nine straight home games.
Each game had a different feel to it, but the results were pretty similar - Iowa, thought to be a poor hitting team, proved critics right, scoring just eight runs over the four games.
On Friday, behind a brilliant pitching performance by senior right-hander Bryan Gale, MSU won a 1-0 thriller in 11 innings.
For a contest that had all the signs of a classic finish, there was no climax. Both teams put runners in scoring position with less than two outs in many of the later innings, but it was a bases-loaded walk to sophomore second baseman Oliver Wolcott that gave MSU the one-run victory.
Gale said the team would have been devastated to lose a game like that to open a four-game series.
"You lose an 11-inning home opener to start the conference and then you have to come out tomorrow morning and play a doubleheader - everyone would be down," Gale said.
The Spartans were everything but down on Saturday, a day slated for two seven-inning games. A day that started with mid-50s temperatures and sun concluded with sleet, but the Spartans had taken two wins, 5-4 and 6-3, respectively.
The first game had excitement as it went into extra innings, similar to Friday's contest.
In the bottom of the ninth, junior catcher Erik Morris laced a line-drive single to center field to plate the game-winning run.
The cool temperatures stayed around Sunday, but they only bothered Iowa, as MSU won easily, 12-1. MSU scored five runs in the first two innings, and to kill any chances of a Hawkeyes' comeback, the Spartans put a seven-spot on the scoreboard in the bottom of the eighth inning.
"Everything is kind of clicking right now and we're just rolling with it," senior first baseman Scott Koerber said. "We got a couple of breaks this weekend."
Still, Mahan said baseball is a game of breaks, streaks and luck, and he feels his team easily could have gone 2-2 this weekend. Then again, he added that the current winning streak is more than luck.
"You don't win nine in a row by accident," Mahan said. "We're playing good baseball right now. I think we made one error this weekend, and our pitching has been outstanding.
"But baseball is a funny game. It can turn on you, too."
