The MSU athletics department announced the hockey, wrestling and volleyball schedules for the upcoming 2012-13 seasons this week.
Hockey head coach Tom Anastos will look to build on a solid first season at the helm with a fifth-place finish in the Central Collegiate Hockey Association a year ago. Next year, in a season that will serve as the CCHA’s swan song before the conference disbands, MSU will meet a series of cluster opponents — meaning it plays them four times — including Ohio State, Michigan, Notre Dame and Ferris State, which fell short of last season’s National Championship.
The Spartans will play the remaining six conference opponents twice each.
Prior to the inaugural Big Ten hockey season in 2013-14, MSU is beefing up its nonconference schedule with the addition of Big Ten schools Minnesota and Penn State.
“Last season’s schedule was one of the toughest in the nation, and we expect more of the same this year,” Anastos said in a release by the athletics department. “We’re integrating Big Ten opponents, celebrating a long relationship with the CCHA and its member schools, and challenging ourselves with quality opponents.”
Once again, the volleyball team will face a formidable schedule next season including eight teams that reached the NCAA Tournament a season ago and six that finished ranked in the top 25.
The Spartans begin the season with the Spartan Showcase at Jenison Field House on Aug. 24-25. The tournament includes McNeese State, Youngstown State and Eastern Kentucky.
To begin the conference slate, the team welcomes Purdue and Indiana to Jenison for back-to-back matches on Sept. 21 and 22 respectively. Illinois comes to town for a home match on Oct. 13 after splitting with MSU a year ago.
MSU’s final home match of the 2012-13 season will be Nov. 21 against Michigan, a few days before concluding its conference schedule on Nov. 24 versus Penn State.
The Spartan wrestling team also has their work cut out for them next season as they face seven Big Ten foes that finished ranked in the top 25 last season.
MSU opens the season on the road at the Eastern Michigan Open Nov. 3, while the grind of the Big Ten schedule starts with a trip to Wisconsin on Dec. 7.
Some of the more challenging meets include Iowa, which finished third at the NCAA Championships last year, on Jan. 20, and then consecutive trips to Nebraska and Minnesota on Feb. 1 and Feb. 3 respectively. The Cornhuskers finished eighth in the final coaches poll a year ago while Minnesota was the NCAA Championship runner-up.
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