“We’ll take a step back in the next couple weeks, and I’m sure we’ll realize we accomplished an awful lot this year,” Boss said. “At the same time, the goal is to win a Big Ten Championship and we fell short of that.”

Not only did the Spartans lose out on an opportunity to win a title, finishing in a tie for seventh in the conference, they also were one win shy of a trip to the Big Ten Tournament, losing to Northwestern on Saturday in what ended up being their final game of the season.

“(Making the tournament) is not even a goal in the program now, it’s an expectation,” Boss said. “It’s something we expect to do every year and when we fall short of it, we’re not happy.”

In spite of winning the fifth-most games in school history and earning MSU’s first 30-win season since 2004, the team stumbled through the Big Ten season, going 11-13.

But before starting Big Ten play April 2, the Spartans were 17-4 and appeared to be among the favorites to compete for a conference title. However, once MSU started the grind of the conference schedule, Boss said the areas he was concerned about prior to the season began to catch up with his team.

“We did really well for a long time at the beginning and then ran into a bad stretch,” Boss said.

“The inconsistency we experienced is just one of those things when you have a young team and they haven’t experienced a whole lot of success yet, and it proved to be the difference maker.”

Some of the Spartans’ misfortunes in the Big Ten also could be attributed to the league’s parody, which was evident in the fact that all 10 teams had a chance to qualify for the Big Ten Tournament going into the final weekend of conference play.

Prior to MSU’s final series against Northwestern, senior designated hitter Chris Roberts said there has been a definite increase in the talent level of all the teams in the Big Ten throughout his four years on campus.

“Everybody seems to be on the rise,” Roberts said. “There’s players going to different schools now, and everybody’s getting good recruits.”

Fortunately for the Spartans, all signs point to them as being on the way up. MSU’s overall regular season record of 34-19 was the best in the conference, and in addition to being one of the top hitting teams in the Big Ten, the team held the top fielding percentage in the conference (.975).

Senior outfielder Eli Boike said he and his fellow classmates did everything they could to make sure all of the returners continue where they left off.

“We tried to lead by example as seniors and we tried to show the younger guys how to work hard and be successful in the future,” Boike said. “I hope they can keep that going, and I think they will.”

Boss said it is hard to start looking ahead to next year so soon after this season’s abrupt end, but he did say he thinks there is a lot to look forward to from his team down the road.

“I really do think the best is yet to come here,” he said. “The program is still moving forward and it’s going to be exciting to see where the next group of seniors takes us.”