The No. 8 MSU field hockey team met with success in its first homestand and conference games of the year last weekend. And after hardly any time at all, the Spartans will be returning to the road and the nonconference schedule this weekend.
The Spartans rode five second-half goals to a convincing 5-2 victory against No. 17 Northwestern last Friday in their Big Ten opener, but will look to continue the momentum as they start their final month of regular season play with a trip to Louisville, Ky.
“Even though we don’t have a conference game this weekend, we face two opponents in the Big East, which is a strong conference, and Louisville is in our region, so it’s important that we have a good showing against them,” head coach Rolf van de Kerkhof said. “Before you know it, the regular season comes to an end at the end of the month, so we have a month to get everything together for postseason play.”
The Spartans are more than halfway through their regular season, but still have five tough games against Big Ten opponents between now and the final match Oct. 31 at Penn State.
Last weekend’s victories against Northwestern and Maine showcased the team’s ability to score late in the game. All seven of MSU’s goals during the weekend were scored in the second half, with three coming in the final six minutes, including senior midfielder Floor Rijpma’s game-winner against Maine with 1:48 remaining.
Rijpma, senior goalie Elissa Unger and freshman forward Manouk Vernij were named Big Ten Players of the Week for offense, defense and Co-Freshman of the Week, respectively.
Not to be lost in the accolades was a strong overall showing by MSU’s defense, which limited Northwestern’s top-rated Big Ten scoring offense for most of the night last Friday and held Maine to one goal.
“We continued to improve with our team defense all over the field,” van de Kerkhof said. “We also see some things we can improve on and that we have to focus on in the next few days.”
Unger made several diving stops against Northwestern this weekend to break up rushes by the Wildcats and keep Northwestern scoreless in the first half Friday. Unger said the team’s challenge this weekend will be making sure they don’t come out flat for the second game.
“We’re still working on that struggle of having two games a weekend,” Unger said. “Once we get into the postseason, we do have back-to-back games, and that’s something where we don’t want to go home so we need to play well in our second game.”
The Spartans square off with Rutgers on Saturday before taking on No. 16 Louisville on Sunday.
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