We’ll have off-season pieces on MSU Football, Basketball, and Hockey coming up but also wanted to provide a brief recap of what’s happening elsewhere in the Spartan Athletic Department.
Several Spartan sports teams are in action this spring. Here’s what’s happened during the past week:
BASEBALL won a mid-week game, 7-4, against Notre Dame prior to hosting a three-game series against Michigan over the weekend. The Spartans fell in consecutive two-run decisions, losing 4-2 and Friday and 6-4 on Saturday
before getting the offense going in a 10-5 win to close out the series on Sunday.
The Sunday win against the Wolverines was much-needed in what has been an overall rough season so far for Michigan State. MSU is just 12-21 overall and 6-12 in the conference.
Next, the Spartans will host Oakland on Tuesday and Western Michigan on Wednesday before traveling to Seattle for a three-game weekend series against Washington.
SOFTBALL is also in the midst of a difficult season, sitting at 15-25 overall and just 2-12 in the Big Ten. Last week, MSU lost to Western Michigan at home on Wednesday and then dropped two of three at Rutgers over the weekend. The Spartans picked up a 9-6 win in the middle game of the series but fell to the Scarlett Knights 10-2 on Friday and 7-4 on Sunday.
Michigan State will welcome Northwestern to East Lansing for a three-game series this weekend.
MEN’S TENNIS dropped their fist Big Ten dual match of the season, falling to Michigan in Ann Arbor on Saturday. The good news is that MSU is 13-8 overall and 10-1 in conference duals so far this spring.
The Spartans will host Indiana and Friday and Purdue on Sunday in their last matches before the Big Ten Tournament begins on April 22 in Ojai, CA.
WOMEN’S TENNIS got off to a hot start in winning their first five dual matches this spring but, since then, the Spartans have slipped to 11-11 overall and 4-8 in the Big Ten.
MSU fell to Maryland yesterday and have a huge match against Michigan at the MSU Indoor Tennis Center on Saturday.
MEN’S GOLF, after posting the second-best team score in Saturday’s round, finished tied for 8th of 16 teams at Robert Kepler Invitational in Columbus, OH over the weekend.
MSU’s best finish so far this spring has been a third-place result out of 15 teams at the Duck Invitational in Eugene, OR on March 23-24.
The Spartans will return to Ohio to close out the regular season at the Muirfield Shootout in Dublin on April 20.
WOMEN’S GOLF was off this weekend but is coming off a first-place finish among 13 teams at the Carolina Challenge Cup in Chapel Hill, NC on April 4. The Spartan women golfers will also close out their regular in Ohio, at the Buckeye Invitational and April 17 and 18.
Finally, GYMNASTICS just missed qualifying for a team bid to the NCAA championships when they finished in third place of four teams in the Tempe Regional on April 4. A top-two finish was needed to advance to the NCAA finals.
Three Spartans did qualify individually, however and will be in Fort Worth, TX for the national championships, which begin on April 16. Nikki Smith qualified for the all-around competition while Sage Kellerman will compete on bars and vault and Nikki Ortiz earned a spot in the floor exercise.
Highly-successful Head Gymnastics Coach Mike Rowe’s contract was also extended for three years last week and now runs through 2029.
