“We’re beyond excited to start Big Tens,” said senior goalkeeper Molly Cassidy. “It’s like a new season for us. We’re just ready to get that started.”

Consistency has been an issue for the Spartans (3-6 overall) thus far. MSU ranks last in shots in the Big Ten with 104, second to last in points with 52, and second to last in goals with 19.

On the defensive end, the team gives up an average of 2.44 goals per game, also the worst mark in the Big Ten.

The team’s saving grace on defense is Cassidy, who leads the Big Ten with 35 saves.

There’s improvement to be made if MSU wants the Big Ten season to be a true clean slate. However, the team sees last weekend’s 1-1 split as a weekend to build off of.

After shutting out Northeastern 2-0 on Friday, the Spartans hung tough with Old Dominion on Sunday before ultimately falling, 3-1.

Cassidy said the team needs to sharpen up details and “control the controllables” in order to find more consistency in Big Ten season.

“Credit to (Old Dominion,) they played a tough game,” Cassidy said. “It was a good learning moment before Big Ten (games) this weekend.”

Regardless of the Sunday loss, senior midfielder Kristen Henn saw two strong team endeavors last weekend.

“It was good that we it was our first weekend we played two good games back-to-back,” Henn said. “Our effort was there Sunday even though we didn’t get the result that we wanted, but we played good Spartan hockey for 70 minutes both days.”

Junior forward Allie Ahern, who leads the team with seven goals, said the team couldn’t execute their game plan Sunday as well as they did Friday.

A key goal for the team for the rest of the season will be maintaining a high level of play from one game to the next.

“We need to stick to the basics and not look at who the opponent is and play every game like it’s a huge game instead of judging the opponent based on their record,” Ahern said of the game against Old Dominion.