BY casey harrison
charrison@statenews.com
After back-to-back seasons of advancing to the Elite Eight of the NCAA Tournament, the MSU men’s soccer team is off to a 1-1 start in the 2015 season. The team is hoping for another strong year to ultimately return as one of the nation’s top programs.
“One of the things that we’ve been talking about is why we have been able to have such success the last couple of years is that we went through the process and didn’t assume anything,” head coach Damon Rensing said. “We didn’t expect anything, and we know that we’ve got to go through this process again which is showing up every day to train hard, work together as a team, know our roles and be confident.”
The Spartans traveled to the west coast last weekend for a two-game road trip. The team was able to come away with a 1-0 victory on Friday night over Portland, with the lone goal by senior defenseman Zach Carroll and a shutout by senior goaltender Zach Bennett. Carroll’s goal came in at 74 minutes and was unanswered by the Pilot offence.
Sunday night was a different story however, with the Spartans falling to Oregon State 1-0. The Beaver’s only offense came in at 17 minutes by forward Timmy Mueller, but that was all they would need.
“I was definitely hoping to come back 2-0, and I think that our team was totally capable of doing that,” Carroll said, “I am disappointed that we came home 1-1 but at the same time I’m pretty satisfied with what we showed, and that loss will help us in the long run if we’re ever put in a situation like that again.”
But after a tough weekend series on the road, the Spartans are happy to be back in East Lansing and play in front of a home crowd.
“It feels great, you know, the whole long travel and can really take a toll on your body, and knowing that we have this really long homestand coming up is very refreshing for our team,” Carroll said.
Bennett is also looking forward to playing in front of the Red Cedar Rowdies.
“I definitely think that the more fans you have the more you can build off of their energy and what they bring to the game,” Bennett said. “There are games where a lot of people show up but there have certainly been games where not a lot of people come out, but like I said we would love to have more fans and we could definitely use their energy but at the same time it’s nothing we can’t handle.”
The Spartans begin their five game homestand against Niagara 4 p.m. Friday at DeMartin Stadium.
