There's a belief in college football that while some conferences feature a fast and attacking style of play, the Big Ten is known as a slower, more physical conference.
It was supposed to be last year's MSU hockey team that had all the glory, not this year's squad. After losing a large portion of the team's offense, as well as several steady, reliable defensemen, hardly anybody would have expected the 2006-07 Spartans to surpass last year's team. But it happened. Last season After starting out the 2005-06 season around the .500 mark and battling through several key injuries, the Spartans were looking for some kind of turnaround. MSU got its spark when then-freshman goaltender Jeff Lerg took over in net and led the Spartans on a 17-4-3 second-half surge. "Last year was a really good team, I think from Christmas on," MSU head coach Rick Comley said. Behind Lerg's goaltending and a stingy defense, the Spartans captured the 2006 CCHA Tournament Championship and earned a No.
MSU hockey head coach Rick Comley has been named one of 11 finalists for the Spencer Penrose Award, which is awarded to college hockey's top coach of the season by the American Hockey Coaches Association. Comley previously won the award in 1980 and in 1991, a year when Comley won his lone national championship.
To stop teams from deliberately losing down the stretch, Houston Rockets head coach Jeff Van Gundy said last week he wants to open the NBA lottery to all teams. Van Gundy also suggested determining playoff seeding with scratch-and-win tickets. T-shirts that West Virginia players wore after winning the NIT championship last week accidentally misspelled the school's name "West Virgina." School officials said there's no excuse for such an obvous mstake. Actor Eddie Griffin crashed a $1.5 million Ferrari race car last week while filming the movie "Redline." It's the most damage Griffin has caused since the hit his career took from "Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo." The owners of Ultimate Fighting Championship agreed last week to buy their biggest rival, Pride Fighting Championships, in hopes of staging "megafights" for pay-per-view.
The MSU men's tennis team finished a weekend of play with a 7-0 loss to No. 3 Ohio State on Sunday.
The MSU softball team opened its Big Ten regular season Sunday, looking to make amends for an embarrassing 11-1 home loss Wednesday against Bowling Green with a road doubleheader at Northwestern. The Spartans fell, 11-3, in the opener, and the finale was still underway at press.
Whenever junior Nick Rinks is on the tennis court, he's focused and concentrated. His mind is one step ahead of the game, always thinking about different strategies and ways to beat his opponent.
When Mark Dantonio was introduced as MSU's head football coach Nov. 27, he used the word "toughness" five times in a matter of minutes when describing his philosophy.
Finally, WrestleMania has come back to Detroit. It has been 20 long years since 93,173 fans packed into the Pontiac Silverdome to see Hulk Hogan topple Andre the Giant at WrestleMania III.
Four years ago, senior captain Chris Lawrence had everything planned out. After his successful stint in juniors with the Pittsburgh Forge of the North American Hockey League, he was going to star at small Division I Mercyhurst College on scholarship in his home state of Pennsylvania, which made his parents happy that he'd be close to home. But then MSU changed everything when the university told Lawrence it wanted him to play hockey as a member of the Spartans. "I never even took a visit when I came here," Lawrence said.
It seems like everything is new again for the MSU football team. New coaches. A (sort of) new quarterback.
MSU softball head coach Jacquie Joseph was hoping for a little more in her team's home opener Wednesday afternoon at Old College Field. Instead, what she got was a lackluster performance in an 11-1 six-inning loss to Bowling Green. The Spartans (18-14) struggled mightily with the top of Bowling Green's lineup, as the top five hitters went 13-for-17 with 10 RBIs and 11 runs scored. Joseph said she "could only hope" that it was just an off game. The Falcons (15-4) got off to a hot start, scoring three runs in the top of the first inning, while adding two more in the top of the second inning. But the big blow came in the top of the fourth, when Bowling Green's Allison Vallas drilled a three-run home run over the right field fence to give the Falcons a commanding 8-0 lead. MSU would get its lone run in the bottom of the inning off a RBI double from senior shortstop Meghan Darhower. Bowling Green tacked on three more runs for good measure in the top of the sixth inning, including a towering home run from Jeanine Baca.
Make sure you buy a program the next time you go to an MSU baseball game. There are a lot of new faces to keep track of. With only three starting position players returning from last season, second-year head coach David Grewe is relying on a mix of freshmen and junior college transfers to help fill the roster.
Although the Spartans won Saturday against Notre Dame in the NCAA Midwest Regional, they lost one of their top defenders. Junior defenseman Daniel Vukovic injured his knee early in the second period when he got tangled up behind the MSU net.
Fans will remember the embraces and fist pumps. They will remember sophomore goaltender Jeff Lerg leaping into junior defenseman Jeff Dunne's arms.
Brian Hoyer got his feet wet at the end of MSU's 2006 season, filling in for injured starting quarterback Drew Stanton, who has used up eligibility. He's not just a substitute anymore.
The MSU baseball team won its home opener against Concordia on Saturday, but was denied the chance for a sweep when Sunday's game was called because of bad weather. Junior center fielder Dennis Jones went 2-for-4 in Saturday's win, including a two-run single in the seventh that put MSU up for good.
The MSU softball team played at the Miami (Ohio) Invitational over the weekend, splitting Saturday's day one by defeating Youngstown State, 14-0, and falling to Purdue, 7-3.
The women's tennis team fell to Purdue on Saturday by a score of 7-0 in its second straight road loss. Seniors Sarah Andrews and Jessica Baron won each of three doubles, 8-3, earning their first Spartans victory. MSU rebounded and won, 5-2, Sunday in its first Big Ten victory of the season at Illinois to close out the weekend play. "I'm very excited about the win," MSU head coach Erica Perkins said in a written statement.
The MSU men's tennis team posted wins on Saturday over Bradley and Valparaiso in a doubleheader, improving the team's record to 9-10. In game two of the afternoon, the Spartans clinched a 5-2 victory after winning five of six singles matches.