Much of the success has come from the excitement of playing in a new ballpark, head coach Jake Boss Jr. said.

“I think first of all, we’re real proud of our new facility, and our guys get really excited to play here,” Boss said. “How could you not be? It’s such a beautiful facility and the people here at Michigan State have done such a tremendous job of getting it ready for us. We’ve had some success here and hopefully that will continue.”

This season’s home play is the exact opposite of the way MSU began last season, as the Spartans dropped 11 of their first 15 home games in 2008. Though the record has been impressive, senior infielder Eric Roof said a lot of it has been luck.

“I don’t know if there is really a difference at home or away; we just play a lot better at home,” Roof said. “I don’t think there’s a different mind-set at home or away, I think it’s just chance. It just ended up happening.”

For as good as MSU has been at home, the team has struggled to stay consistent, causing the Spartans to be streaky, winning four in a row then dropping four games. Boss said the Spartans’ youth and inexperience has led to many ups and downs this season.

“We talk about playing consistent baseball a lot,” Boss said. “If we can get to that point where we consistently make routine plays and do things the right way, I think good things are going to happen. Obviously we’re not there yet and it’s going to be a process.”

Still, the thrill of beating its in-state rivals in a series for the first time since 2002 had MSU beaming Sunday. Junior outfielder Eli Boike said the team is hoping to carry this momentum into the week.

“It’s always positive to win a series,” Boike said. “We got to keep trying to win series for the rest of the season to get to the top of the Big Ten. … The first two years (U-M) swept us, so it feels pretty good to get some revenge on them. It would have been nice to sweep them, but we still got two wins on them.”

The Spartans’ series win against U-M has moved it near the top half of the Big Ten and gives the Spartans a good chance of moving up in the conference standings with series against Iowa, Penn State and Purdue, all teams it has a solid chance at beating.

“We were playing well up until today, then we ended up not playing well,” Roof said. “I think we’ll be all right going into this weekend, and I like our chances. We take the same approach every week. We don’t really try to worry about what other teams do, we worry about ourselves. Iowa’s going to be a good team. They’ve beat off a couple teams, they beat Michigan, so they’re going to be ready for us.”