Senior defender Nosa Iyoha gets tangled up with Marquette midfielder Scott Miller as they fight for the ball. The Spartans defeated the Golden Eagles 1-0 on Sept. 17 at DeMartin Stadium at Old College Field.
With just six games in the Big Ten soccer conference schedule, every game matters.
Last year, Ohio State won the conference with two losses, and the No. 11 MSU men’s soccer team knows it likely will need to pick up at least one of the team’s three road games to win the conference title.
The Spartans’ Big Ten aspirations will take the team to challenging road games at No. 24 Penn State, Michigan and Sunday’s match in Columbus against No. 19 Ohio State.
MSU (7-1, 1-0 Big Ten) has proved unbeatable at home in DeMartin Stadium at Old College Field and has shown to be a tough visitor, winning three road games this season. Head coach Damon Rensing said stealing a couple Big Ten games on the road will help only if home remains a stronghold.
“You want to get that road (win),” Rensing said. “If we want to talk about getting a Big Ten championship, you have to win at home and try to win one or two on the road.”
Winning on the road becomes a greater challenge when it takes the Spartans to the only other two ranked teams in the Big Ten. But winning at those venues will make Ohio State and Penn State’s paths to the Big Ten titles much more difficult.
Ohio State (5-2-2, 1-0) is the reigning Big Ten conference regular season and tournament champions, a detail that makes this game more important, junior forward Domenic Barone said.
“They won last year,” Barone said. “It’s a big game for us. If we can get a good result and be 2-0 (in the Big Ten), that’s real good to get a win against them.”
The Buckeyes bring a team loaded with experienced juniors from last year’s team.
“They’re real physical — a real Big Ten team,” Barone said. “And real experienced. I think they lost only one or two players from last year. They’re just experienced, and that means a lot, especially in games like this. They’re going to be tough, but it should be alright.”
The Buckeyes are led offensively by forward Konrad Warzycha, who has four of the team’s 10 goals on the season. Ohio State’s defense, which has given up six goals on the season, might have fits with an MSU team that has scored 19 goals.
The Spartans started the 2009 Big Ten slate 0-3 and have a chance to start 2-0 with wins against teams that started the season ranked well ahead of MSU.
A six-game win streak and a 2-0 win over preseason No. 9 Northwestern on Sept. 26 have the Spartans loaded with confidence. Still, it is a modest confidence, which is being kept in check by the team’s experience, senior defender Colin Givens said.
“We still have to show up for the next five games and bring it,” Givens said. “(It’s) always going to be a tough game against Ohio State. It’s never easy to go down into Columbus and play them there, so it’s going to be a great challenge for us. … We’re going to prepare mentally and physically and I think we’ll be ready.”
The team will have had a full week of rest between the Northwestern game and the Ohio State game and took Monday and Tuesday off to recover from a nonstop early part of the season.
“We’ve been going pretty hard for the last three weeks,” Givens said. “We started off at Maryland and at Georgetown and haven’t stopped since.
“It will be good to get a breather and just really take a step back and reset our goals, see where we want to be and start fresh. (If we) have a good week of practice and go into Columbus as fresh as we can be, I think it’ll be a good result.”
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