After a disappointing overtime loss to Indiana on Sunday, head coach Tom Saxton said the veteran players need to look more deeply at what the game of soccer means to them and step up their play.

“We had a lot of our key players not play at their best today; it’s that simple,” Saxton said. “I think there are emotions that play into that, so what I’ll look for, besides game planning and how we might play against Penn State, (is) the folks that come back and are ready to go to work.”

With only two wins in the Big Ten, MSU has been — and I use this word lightly ­­— resilient every step of the way.

Despite losing one of the best senior classes in MSU women’s soccer history and having 20 underclassmen on the team with relatively little experience playing tough Big Ten opponents, the Spartans have traveled to difficult venues and played well against some of the top teams in the conference.

They lost to Illinois 3-2 in a nationally televised game in Champaign, Ill., only after Illinois star player Vanessa DiBernardo completed her hat trick on a beautiful free kick.

They took their bitter rival, Michigan, to overtime in Ann Arbor, but lost in a heartbreaking fashion after a header with less than a minute to play in the first overtime period.

After both of these losses, the team and its coach were confident and felt they could use the strong play as a springboard for the rest of the season, but as the team left the field Sunday, a different, negative kind of vibe was present.

The team walked off the field with heads down and barely even met with the coaching staff as they usually do after each game.

It was a feeling of disgrace, almost as if their season had ended.

MSU faces its toughest test yet at 7 p.m. Friday when they travel to University Park, Pa., to face off against No. 4 Penn State, before heading to Columbus, Ohio, to take on Ohio State at 1 p.m. Sunday.

Even Saxton said he only can do so much and that the leaders have got to do what they’re supposed to do and set an example for this young team.

“They’ve got to dig down, and we’ve got to get some team spirit and say, ‘Hey, let’s move forward,’” Saxton said. “We try to provide it as coaches, but it’s much more potent if it comes from them.”

The dictionary defines resilience as an ability to recover from or adjust easily to misfortune. If the Spartans want to make it to any postseason tournament, they must commit this definition to mind and use it in their upcoming games.