Hopes of ushering in a new era of MSU women’s soccer.

Even after losing what head coach Tom Saxton regarded as his best recruiting class last year, he still had an ambitious attitude for what he wanted his team to accomplish.

“(It’s a) good team.” Saxton said after a 1-0 loss to Northwestern on Saturday. “Just sometimes, maybe, we need to do a tad better, (sometimes) having breaks go against us.”

So why didn’t they perform as well as expected down the stretch?

This season was one of the toughest road schedules the Spartans have faced in program history, as they traveled to some of the roughest places to play in the Big Ten, such as Illinois, Michigan, Ohio State and Penn State, and Saxton said a schedule such as that can start to wear on such a young team.

MSU lost at Michigan in overtime before coming home and suffering the same fate against Indiana.

After the loss to Indiana, the mood among team wasn’t the same — almost as if they had told themselves that the season had slipped away.

“I expected better in terms of making the postseason, and a better overall record,” Saxton said. “We weren’t that far off, so it is what it is.”

As much as the Spartans could have been down in the dumps early in the season, they were very resilient in how classy they acted, even after tough losses.

Still, the youth of the program makes this team, and the players who performed well this season, very intriguing for the future.

Two-thirds of the team members are underclassmen, and only two seniors, forward Olivia Stander, five goals and 10 assists, and midfielder Jordan Mueller, one goal and three assists, started a significant number of games. Others such as defenders Desiree Aber and Kelsey Kassab missed time during the season due to substantial injuries, limiting the impact Saxton had expected of them.

“(This season) made us a lot younger, a lot quicker,” Saxton said. “We ended up starting three freshmen consistently.”

Freshman forward Allyson Krause, who scored four goals and had two assists this season, is ready to take on the scoring hole Stander is sure to leave, as well as sophomore forward Paige Wester, and getting sophomore forward Lisa Vogel back from an ACL tear also will soften the blow.

Sophomore midfielder Megan Marsack is set to be the “quarterback” of the midfield and take on the leadership role that Mueller once held.

The Spartans now are poised to come back next year with a core group of young players with copious amounts of talent and a small, but very talented recruiting class.

“In terms of the program in general and our coaching staff, we’re excited to move forward,” Saxton said. “We’re just going to go back to work and get back in there.”

This season might have seemed as if it cost a lot, but the value of the youth going forward is priceless.

Zach Smith is the State News women’s soccer reporter. He can be reached at smithza9@msu.edu.