One of the few positives from this game was the return of defender Brandon Munson to their lineup for the first time since September 19th in a game against Ohio State where he went down with an ankle injury. He may not have made a difference in the result for the team, but he was solid defensively and opened up a lot of attacking opportunities on the left wing with his crossing. A big player for this Spartan team finishing the season and Rensing will be happy to have him back available.

MSU spent the majority of this game controlling possession and dictating the tempo at which it game was played. This caused a lot of frustration early on, leading to Wisconsin chasing and dragging multiple white shirts down from behind, putting themselves in trouble with the referee, who gave out 3 yellow cards to the Badgers.

The game-changing moment for the Spartans came late in the first half after a big save from Zac Kelly where Will Eby was tracking back to help his keeper and awkwardly fell without contact holding his knee. Eby was helped off by a trainer and Rensing, and would not return as the team struggled in the second half defensively, missing his presence in the back line.

The opening goal came in the 68th minute for Wisconsin as midfielder Matthew Zachemski was threaded through on a perfect pass from Cristobal Porter, after he fired a shot to Zac Kelly’s near side into the back of the net off the post. The first shot of a very slow start to the second half and the Badgers turned the game around by scoring the first goal.

Not even ten minutes would go by before Wisconsin would double their lead in the 75th minute, taking away any hope MSU had of coming back in this game. Defender Will Smith would launch in a long throw-in from the right side and the Spartan defense had no answer for how to deal with it, leaving Thomas Raimbault with a free header in the box which he put past Kelly to seal it.

The damage to MSU was largely self-inflicted, as the team continued to hurt itself throughout the game with numerous mistakes. In addition to defensive errors that led to goals, MSU was caught offside a shocking seven times on offense, halting momentum on several promising attacking opportunities.

A common occurrence from this season for the Spartans as they dominate yet another game but struggle to close it out and get important results. Their season is nearing a close and MSU are in a tight contest with several teams for lower seeding in the Big Ten tournament in jeopardy of missing out entirely as they now have to regroup and fix some of their common mistakes to finish out the season.

MSU hopes to bounce back at home with a short turnaround when they will take on UCLA at DeMartin Stadium on Monday.