Different weekend, same old story. For the third consecutive weekend, MSU volleyball has taken home the title from a weekend invitational.
It’s been over a decade since MSU legend T.J. Duckett donned a green and white uniform, but Saturday afternoon there was another No. 8 lining up in MSU’s backfield. Redshirt freshman defensive end Lawrence Thomas — “LT” to his coaches and teammates — saw an expanded role in a place few expected to see — at the fullback position.
There was every reason to exhale. Every reason to enjoy the victory over Boise State a little too long, and think ahead to Notre Dame a little too early. But from start to finish, the Spartans made it clear: they came to Mt. Pleasant, Mich., to dominate, and refused to relent.
The Spartans went on to finish off the Chippewas 41-7 behind Bell’s two touchdown, 70 yard performance and the leadership of junior quarterback Andrew Maxwell, who threw for 275 yards and two touchdowns on 20-for-31 passing.
The No. 11 MSU football team cleaned up at Kelly/Shorts Stadium, knocking off the Chippewas 41-7 Saturday afternoon.
Junior running back Le’Veon Bell is leading the Spartan effort, carrying the ball 15 times for 60 yards and two touchdowns. After a shaky start, junior quarterback Andrew Maxwell seemed to find his groove with his receiving corps, going 17-for-28 for 213 yards and his first touchdown of the season, a 20-yard strike to junior tight end Dion Sims.
MSU volleyball may have seen its 18-set winning streak stopped when it dropped the first set to IPFW in the first game of the Auto-Owners Insurance Invitational, but the Spartans fought back and won their seventh match in a row, 3-2. Head coach Cathy George is happy with the win, however. “It’s OK to be tested,” she said.
Any time a team loses to a rival at home, it’s easy to focus on the negatives. But MSU field hockey has chosen to focus on the positives after their 2-1, double overtime loss to Virginia.
When the Spartans step onto the field at Kelly/Shorts Stadium Saturday afternoon, they will be doing so in front of the biggest crowd the stadium has seen. For the first time in Central Michigan’s school history, tickets for the game sold out prior to game day, where the No. 11 Spartans (1-0) will face off against the Chippewas (1-0) before an expected record capacity of 32,855 fans.
Bennie Fowler only was a freshman, but the moment still stands out in his mind. It was three years ago when a 42-yard Central Michigan field goal with three seconds remaining handed MSU a stunning 29-27 loss in Spartan Stadium that began a three-game losing streak.
In the fourth quarter, CMU kicker Andrew Aguila misses a 47-yard field goal, but an offside penalty against defensive end Colin Neely gave CMU another chance.
With just two games to go until the Big Ten season starts, the MSU women’s soccer team has its eye set on a Big Ten championship — its first since 1994.
MSU field hockey’s three-game winning streak has caught the attention of the rest of the nation. After a weekend featuring a signature win over then-No. 11 Stanford and a shutout win over Miami (Ohio), the Spartans find themselves ranked 20th in the nation by the Penn Monto/National Field Hockey Coaches Association, or NFHCA, Division I National Coaches Poll.
Now everyone’s attention turns to the coming Auto-Owners Insurance Spartan Invitational this weekend at Jenison Field House, where MSU will take on IPFW on Friday, followed by Albany and Georgia on Saturday. Both George and sophomore libero Kori Moster noted the competition is starting to get tougher, with George calling the weekend’s slate “very strong.”
The MSU men’s golf team gets their season underway this weekend when they travel to Sugar Grove, Ill., to take on Indiana and Purdue in the Northern Intercollegiate on Saturday and Sunday. The Spartans then go to Zionsville, Ind., on Sept. 15-16, to compete in the Wolf Run Intercollegiate along with Illinois and Wisconsin.
It will be a battle of the conferences as the MSU men’s soccer team (1-2-1) heads out to the east coast for the first time this weekend to test its Big Ten skills against Big East and Ivy League opponents.
Two overtimes weren’t enough as the MSU women’s soccer team played to a 0-0 draw against Oakland on Wednesday night.
The MSU football team has been getting attention lately because of some players’ tweets about the U-M football loss to Alabama, but one MSU student-athlete has been making an impression for quite some time — and causing much less trouble along the way.
MSU’s receiving corps have heard it all before. They’re young. They’re untested. They make mistakes. They can’t make the big plays. Junior running back Le’Veon Bell will have to carry this offense. After Friday’s game, it only got worse. The passing game took a backseat to Bell’s monstrous performance, as the Spartans struggled to move the ball through the air. Three interceptions and a fumble by sophomore wide receiver Tony Lippett later and MSU doesn’t appear to boast the same wideout pedigree it has in the past.
When the No. 11 MSU football team (1-0) takes the field and one of the country’s most heralded defenses lines up each Saturday, a glance across the field often shows Johnny Adams and Darqueze Dennard matched up on their own, with no one around to help them.