The men’s soccer team had a good week last week, to say the least.
MSU (7-1-1 overall, 1-0-0 Big Ten) went on the road and beat University of Illinois-Chicago 2-0 to earn their sixth shutout of the season last Tuesday. Shortly after, the Spartans upset No. 5 Northwestern 3-2 in double overtime on the Wildcats’ home turf Sunday afternoon.
With nearly a week before the Spartans’ next tilt against Ohio State at 1 p.m. Sunday at DeMartin Stadium, the team has some time to recover.
It was the third straight game between the Wildcats and Spartans that went to overtime, and the first win in Evanston, Ill. for MSU since 2001.
The win on Sunday catapulted MSU to No. 1 in the NCAA RPI, and head coach Damon Rensing said the team is focusing on what got them to where they are.
“We put the Northwestern game behind us,” Rensing said. “It was a good win. It’s just an RPI ranking, but we’ve got just as hard a schedule the last eight games of the year. We’re not too worried about where we are right now, but where we finish.”
Junior forward Adam Montague was named Big Ten Offensive Player of the Week after scoring game-winning goals in both games in Chicago. He was also a member of the College Soccer News Team of the Week.
Montague leads the team in shots this season, and his mark of 3.78 shots per game is the best in the Big Ten.
The break will also help the healing of senior defender Kevin Cope, who was ranked No. 22 on topdrawersoccer.com’s preseason Top 100 to Watch, after missing the last five games with an injury.
Cope played the entire game against Northwestern, and Rensing said being able to push junior midfielder Fatai Alashe, who was filling in for Cope on the back line, back to his original position helped to defeat Northwestern.
“I wouldn’t say he’s a hundred percent, but he’s well enough to play full games, and that’s huge,” he said. “He knows what Big Ten games are like. There’s always a little more intensity in those Big Ten games.”
The Spartans sit atop the RPI ranking for the first time in program history.
Rensing said the target isn’t on their back yet, but people are starting to take notice of MSU; and when it comes to the Big Ten, anything can happen.
“These Big Ten games will be a battle, no matter what the RPI or ranking is of anybody,” he said. “Certainly, we want to have that RPI ranking at the end of the season when the NCAA selection comes around, but we’ve got a lot of soccer to be played.”
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