When head coach Tom Anastos took over the MSU hockey program back in 2011, he envisioned this sort of progress heading into his fourth season.
The men’s soccer team (4-1-1 overall, 1-0 conference) have reeled off two straight wins after losing to Valparaiso 1-0 on Sept. 11 and they’ve done it without some key players, asking others to step up in their place. The game is not all MSU lost on Sept. 11, as the Spartans lost team captain senior forward Adam Montague. His loss was immediately felt in the game as head coach Damon Rensing cited it as a factor in the loss.
With another come-from-behind overtime victory for No. 18 MSU field hockey this past weekend, the morale of the team is high. With the victory however, the Spartans know that falling behind in every game is like playing with dynamite in the Big Ten.
Plenty of players saw action in No. 9 MSU’s win over Eastern Michigan last Saturday, topping the Eagles, 73-14. The Spartans were able to play a total of 74 players on Saturday, some of which improved their stock quite a bit. As MSU (2-1 overall) enters this week’s matchup against Wyoming (3-1 overall)EMC there are multiple notable changes on the depth chart including a few wide receivers moving into starter roles and an outside linebacker fighting for his No. 1 spot.
An easy, but sometimes misleading, way to identify a soccer team’s top players is to check the scoring column and see who sits atop the roster.
While the men’s soccer team (4-1-1 overall, 1-0-0 Big Ten) prepares to play against the Bowling Green State University Falcons (6-1-0 overall) on the road on Wednesday, Sept. 24, they will be faced with the daunting task of stopping the current leading scorer in the nation — Bowling Green’s sophomore forward Pat Flynn, who has 12 goals through seven games thus far. Flynn is already on the minds of MSU’s coaches as head coach Damon Rensing cited stopping Pat Flynn as a key to success on Wednesday.
Without financial support from the university, MSU students have built the Michigan State University Polo Club from the ground up since the program started in 1999. For the last eight years, MSU has hosted the annual Polo at the Pavilion event with University of Michigan to raise money for each schools’ clubs. On Thursday evening, MSU lost to Michigan 15-7 during the collegiate match, but for the members, it was the money raised that counted — $1,840 was raised from ticket sales, the 50/50 raffle, merchandise sales, donations and business advertisements, according to sophomore Rachel LeBel from the junior varsity MSU polo team. The money will be split in half to benefit both teams.
Head coach Cathy George knew the first month of the season would be challenging for MSU volleyball (7-4 overall), EMCwho played five teams that made the NCAA tournament last season in a 15-day span. Unlike football, there’s no bye week for the volleyball team, which begins play in the toughest conference in the collegiate ranks on Friday against Indiana.
No. 9 MSU made quick work of Eastern Michigan on Saturday at Spartan Stadium, embarrassing the Eagles, 73-14. MSU (2-1 overall) outgained EMU (1-3 overall) 320 to one in total yards in the first half, releasing some built up frustration from its loss out in Eugene, Ore. Here are four takeaways from the Spartans’ impressive victory this past week.
In the midst of a close match against LIU-Brooklyn last Friday, the ball ricocheted off a Spartan and nearly landed out of bounds, which would have resulted in a point for the other team. But as she’s done many times during her career at MSU, senior libero Kori Moster dived into the audience to keep the point alive for the Spartans.
Last year, No. 16 MSU field hockey played 24 games as they advanced through the Big Ten Tournament and into the Elite Eight. Of those 24 games, five of them went to overtime. This year, MSU has played the same amount of overtime in just seven games.
It took only about three minutes into Saturday’s matchup between No. 9 MSU and Eastern Michigan for the floodgates to open. And once they opened, there was no way to stop the rush. MSU (2-1 overall)cm let off some built-up anger to rout EMU, 73-14, on Saturday at Spartan Stadium. MSU reeled off 56 unanswered points before EMU (1-3 overall) recorded anything, coasting to an easy win over the Mid-American Conference foe.
Every sport seemingly has an as-old-as-time set of values and rules that make up “the right way” and “the wrong way” to play the game.
After a loss to Rutgers on Friday night, MSU bounced back on Sunday and wrapped up its east coast road trip with a double-overtime tie against new conference foe Maryland, 0-0. The Spartans (6-3-1 overall, 0-3-1 Big Ten) played yet another close game, this time escaping the weekend with a much needed point in the conference standings.
No. 25 MSU (7-4 overall) won two of three games over the weekend at Jenison Field House as part of the 2014 Auto-Owners Insurance Spartan Invitational. The tournament got off to a rough start for the Spartans, who lost to LIU-Brooklyn (9-4 overall) 3-2 (25-22, 21-25, 20-25, 26-24, 13-15) on Friday afternoon.
Over the weekend, the men’s soccer team (4-1-1 overall, 1-0 Big Ten) played Maryland in what was their first Big Ten game of the season on Sept. 19, winning 1-0.
After a 73-14 win against Eastern Michigan, MSU football has moved up to No. 9 in the AP Top 25 Poll.
No. 25 MSU (7-4 overall) dominated UW-Milwaukee (5-8 overall), winning in three straight sets for the second night in a row (25-19, 25-8, 25-16) at Jenison Field House on Saturday night. “The thing that was so cool about (tonight) is that we were discipline two nights in a row,” senior libero Kori Moster said. “It was a huge step in the right direction.”
It was MSU early and MSU often as the No. 11 Spartans (2-1 overall) rolled over the Eastern Michigan Eagles (1-3 overall) 73-14.The 73 points put up by the Spartans surpassed the previous high in the Dantonio era of 55 against UAB in 2007, Indiana in 2011 and Youngstown State in 2013.
Two weeks ago in Eugene, Ore., the ‘Spartan Dawgs’ looked more like the ‘Spartan Pups.’No.