Before this season, Chris Cullen bounced around the MSU baseball team’s pitching staff without any firm role. But with a little help from pitching coach Tom Lipari and some offseason work, the senior right-hander has developed into arguably the team’s most dependable starting pitcher, a place head coach David Grewe plans to keep him.
MSU men’s head basketball coach Tom Izzo has landed another recruit for the 2009-2010 season. Six-foot-9, 275-pound center Derrick Nix verbally committed to MSU, according to the scouting Web site Rivals.com.
In an instant, it all changed — a positive swing for half of the MSU football team but a negative one for the other 40 Spartans. The Green team caught a late surge from senior kicker Matt Haughey’s two field goals Saturday afternoon at Spartan Stadium en route to a 23-21 victory over White in the intrasquad spring game that hosted about 27,000 fans.
A senior-year, season-ending knee injury followed by microfracture surgery is a situation most typical 18-year-old basketball players would have no idea how to bounce back from.
The MSU softball team doesn’t seem to follow any predictable pattern. The Spartans split a two-game series against Purdue and ended the weekend by splitting a doubleheader Sunday against Indiana.
MSU football fans turned out in droves for the intrasquad game Saturday, but some fans had the chance to watch from a place few would normally expect.
MSU baseball coach David Grewe went into this weekend’s series with Michigan saying the matchup wasn’t a rivalry because one team — the Wolverines — always comes out on top.
It wasn’t one wide receiver who stepped up in Saturday’s spring game — it was four. And that depth is important for a football team that lost eight touchdowns and 1,260 receiving yards when Devin Thomas declared for the NFL draft after last season. With Thomas watching from the sideline, the young receiving corps of sophomore Mark Dell, redshirt freshmen B.J. Cunningham and Chris D. Rucker and junior Blair White stole the show at MSU’s annual spring game.
The MSU men’s tennis team was as hot as the temperature on Saturday against Northwestern, but it went cold against Wisconsin on Sunday.
It appeared that MSU football sophomore wide receiver Chris D. Rucker was going to steal the show with his two touchdowns — possibly leading the White squad to a intrasquad spring game victory and steak dinner, the reward for being victorious.
It wasn’t trash-talking — senior defensive tackle Justin Kershaw wanted to make that clear — but there’s an air of confidence surrounding the White team as the MSU football team heads into its annual spring game.
MSU women’s basketball head coach Suzy Merchant announced the signing of a third recruit for the 2008-09 season on Thursday. Joining Porsche Poole and Courtney Schiffauer in signing a National Letter of Intent is Taylor Johnson.
Walking by a Ping-Pong table, gaming consoles and shelves of shining trophies filled with Spartans history, Sam Puryear’s office sits with the door wide open. Upon accepting the head coaching job at MSU in August, Puryear left Stanford, a Pac-10 team that just won the national championship.
When the MSU baseball team and Michigan meet for four games this weekend, they’ll travel a short distance to each other’s home fields, but MSU coach David Grewe won’t refer to the cross-state showdown as a “rivalry.”
The MSU softball team will try to bounce back from a lackluster weekend to battle Purdue in a two-game weekend series. But it won’t be easy, especially for a team that’s slumped as of late, MSU head coach Jacquie Joseph said.
If one team heavily beats up on the other during Saturday’s intrasquad spring game, MSU football head coach Mark Dantonio won’t be pleased.
Though it may seem strange to admit, representing a northern school in the Big Ten, MSU baseball head coach David Grewe calls his a squad a “warm weather team.” So, with a temperature of above 60 degrees in the ninth inning of Wednesday’s game against Central Michigan, it was only natural for MSU’s bats to explode.
A 2 percent increase each and every spring camp practice — that’s the goal. And for certain members of MSU football head coach Mark Dantonio’s squad, there’s more than just getting stronger and developing good habits — it’s about transitioning into a brand-new position in order to help the team.
For the second straight season, sophomore Rochelle Robinson will represent MSU and compete on the national stage in the NCAA Championships. Last year, Robinson placed 22nd in the all-around with a score of 38.400.
Adding a fourth win to his list for the season, senior golfer Ryan Brehm was named Big Ten Men’s Golfer of the Week.