MSU women's soccer: Michigan State defeats Baylor at home

EAST LANSING - The Michigan State women’s soccer team wrapped up its opening weekend debut with a 1-0 victory over Baylor University on Sunday afternoon at DeMartin Stadium.

The Spartans found themselves with two corner kicks in the first half but could only generate two shots compared to Baylor’s six. However, the MSU backline pressure prevailed and goalkeeper senior Kaitlyn Collin recorded four saves in the half.

“It was a very competitive team but I thought we played a very good first half. Even though they had a shot advantage on us, they were mostly all from outside so I thought it was a good even first half,” said head coach Tom Saxton.

In the second half, Baylor’s Raegan Padgett wove her way through the Spartan defense in the 73rd minute and sent a shot rising toward Collin, who just got a hand on the ball, deflecting it off the crossbar to keep it 0-0.

The Spartans found momentum and took advantage in the waning minutes of regulation. On a corner kick in the 81st minute, senior Marisa Oleksiak sent an arching kick from the right side that descended just in front of the near goalpost where junior Jamie Cheslik got her head on the ball and flicked it past Baylor goalkeeper Sara Martinson.

“It was a really well executed corner so I am really very happy for Marisa (Oleksiak) and Jamie (Cheslik) for that execution,” said Saxton.

Michigan State’s defense held on in the final minutes and the Spartans earned the 1-0 victory over the Bears.

Collin finished with seven saves. The Spartans netminder and the MSU defense posted their second clean sheet of the weekend, after Friday’s 0-0 draw versus Niagara.

“We are happy more than anything else because our message in training yesterday was, after a kind of disappointing performance on Friday, we just have to try to get better every game,” said Saxton. “We certainly saw that out of the young players and the veterans, they stepped up and came to play today. Honestly, regardless of the result the quality that we played with today was much improved over Friday which was the most gratifying thing as a coaching staff and when you can get a win like that it just adds kind of the cherry on top.”

Michigan State will travel to No. 4 Virginia on Thursday and the kick off time is slated for 7 p.m.

From the MSU Athletics Department