Despite losing its final three regular season games, spirits are high for the MSU men’s soccer team as it heads into the Big Ten Tournament. It also doesn’t hurt that the Spartans will host the tournament starting at 9 a.m. Thursday at Old College Field.
MSU won the Big Ten Tournament in Ann Arbor in 2004.
“It’s an exciting time of the year,” MSU head coach Joe Baum said. “It’s like a new season for everybody. Our whole year is based on this tournament. Everything else was just for seeding. You win this, you’re the champions of the Big Ten. This year, the Big Ten has been the highest RPI-rated conference in the country, so it’ll be a tremendous honor for some university.”
MSU will kick off at 2 p.m. Thursday against Penn State — a team it battled to a 2-2 tie in September.
“They’re really well organized defensively,” junior midfielder Zac Scaffidi said. “They have a couple new guys starting and we’re a team of veterans and we know what needs to be done. We’re going to take it to them.”
MSU will go into the tournament with an 11-4-3 season record. The team is 7-1-1 at Old College Field.
“We all love playing at Old College Field,” Scaffidi said. “We always seem to play better at home. We’re in a comfortable environment. We’ve had great success at home, but the past three games we’ve been a little bit unlucky. But being home at the Big Ten Tournament and having fans on our side will really help us do well.”
Baum attributed the three straight defeats — all by 2-0 scores — to the Spartans’ losing their passing rhythm, but thinks that the team has had a good year and will get back on track.
“The strength of this team really lies in its passing game,” Baum said. “We’re not real big, we’re not great on restarts and if we can’t pass the ball, we’re in trouble, so I think we can find the passing rhythm again and get that going, pick some balls off, counter-attack the goal and I think that’s when we’re at our best.”
Perennial conference powerhouse Indiana comes into the tournament as the No. 1 seed and will be the only team to forgo play Thursday with a bye.
Northwestern and Wisconsin will kick off play at 9 a.m. on Thursday, while Ohio State and Michigan follow at 11:30 a.m. and MSU and Penn State wrap up the day at 2 p.m.
Indiana will play the winner of the MSU-Penn State game at 1:30 p.m. Friday while the other two winners will meet in the other semifinal at 11 a.m.
The championship game is at 2 p.m. Sunday.
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