GREEN & WHITE

MSU roundup: Hockey drops home finale to No. 11 Penn State

Lansing State Journal
Michigan State logo.

No. 11 Penn State used three first-period goals en route to a 4-1 win over the Michigan State hockey team on Saturday night at Munn Ice Arena. Villiam Haag, one of eight seniors playing at Munn for the final time, scored for the Spartans.

Nate Sucese got the scoring started for Penn State, as he got his first of two goals in the opening period at the 11:18 mark to give the Nittany Lions a 1-0 lead. David Goodwin set up the goal with a diagonal pass from the boards at the top of the right circle, hitting Sucese at the far side of the crease where he tapped the puck into a wide open net.

Denis Smirnov made it 2-0 with a power-play goal at the 14:12 mark as he snapped the puck over Ed Minney’s glove from the top of the left circle.

Sucese finished off a 2-on-1 during a 4-on-4 situation with 50 seconds to go in the first to extend the PSU lead to 3-0.

The Nittany Lions (20-8-2, 9-6-1) made it tough for the Spartans to get back in the game, stifling three power play opportunities and limiting MSU’s quality scoring chances all night.

The Spartans (6-21-3, 2-12-2) eventually got on the board courtesy of Haag with 9:22 to go in the game. Off a faceoff in the PSU end, Patrick Khodorenko got control of the puck and went to the net. Goaltender Peyton Jones knocked the puck away from Khodorenko, but Haag was waiting for a rebound and backhanded it into the net for his sixth goal of the year.

Holland picked up an assist on the goal, giving him points in three consecutive games.

Unfortunately for the Spartans, PSU got the goal back less than two minutes later as Andrew Sturtz put the puck past Minney, making it 4-1.

Minney finished with 31 saves for the Spartans.

It was the final home appearance of the season for the Spartans’ eight seniors - Joe Cox, Thomas Ebbing, Chris Knudson, Justin Selep, JT Stenglein, Connor Wood, Haag and Holland  – who were honored in a ceremony following the game.

The Spartans will hit the road for their final four regular-season games, playing at Ohio State next weekend (March 3-4) and then at Minnesota (March 10-11).

Track and Field

Spartans finishes indoor season at Big Ten championships

The Michigan State men’s and women’s track & field team concluded the indoor season at the Big Ten Championships at the SPIRE Institute in Geneva, Ohio, on Saturday. The men’s team finished the indoor season with an 11th-place finish with a score of 21 points. The women also rounded out the season with an 11th-place finish and a final score of 24 points.

Indiana won the men’s title with a score of 112, Penn State took second with 84 points, while Wisconsin rounded out the top three with 75.50 points. Penn State garnered the women’s title with 96.50 points, Purdue was a close second with 94 points and Ohio State took third with 83 points.

“Every time in an athletic event there is going to be some things that go well and some things that don’t go very well and we had a little bit of both these past couple days,” said Director of Cross Country and Track and Field Walt Drenth. “We need more depth and that is something that we will work on as coaches but I thought we continued to turn the corner today. I thought we competed from the beginning of the day to the end, for the most part. Our scoring pieces have to get better, we have to score, we can’t have people hiccup because they’re in a Big Ten Championship.”

Sophomore Will Agodu was the highlight for the Spartans on the final day of the Championships. Agodu was the last-seeded sprinter in the men’s 60-meter hurdles from the preliminaries the day before and he raced to a fourth-place finish on a personal-best time of 7.91.

“He is certainly a talented guy,” said Drenth. “It has taken him a while to trust his new coach fully but you are starting to see evidence of that. Coach Johnson has done a fantastic job with him, she is an exceptional hurdles coach and I think he’ll keep getting better as long as he keeps trusting her. That fourth place finish is a clear indication of what he has learned and what he can do going forward.”

The duo of freshman Nick Guerrant and junior Justin Pederson concluded the last three events of the heptathlon. Guerrant finished 11th with a season-best score of 4610, while Pederson finished 13th with a score of 4378.

Sophomore Cody Stemple took 10th in the high jump, clearing 2.08-meters and sophomore Michael Schauer threw a personal-best of 16.37-meters in the men’s weight throw.

MSU had four Spartans compete in the men’s 5000-meter run and were led by junior Clark Ruiz who finished ninth on a time of 14:13.34. Junior Max Benoit took 14th, redshirt senior Sherod Hardt claimed 16th-place, and junior Nathan Burnand took 19th.

The men rounded out the day with a 10th-place finish and season-best time of 3:11.95 in the 4x400-meter relay. The team consisted of junior Alec Wiater, freshman Noah Burton, senior David Washington and junior Antonio Clarke.

On the women’s front, junior Katelyn Daniels finished with a throw of 18.62-meters to tally a seventh-place finish in the weight throw, while sophomore Stephanie Pajot tacked on her furthest throw of 15.47-meters. In the women’s triple jump sophomore Shelby Allen took 12th-place for a final jump of 12.02-meters.

Michigan State had four athletes run in the 5000-meter run and were paced by senior Alexis Wiersma. Wiersma finished seventh with a time of 16:07.44 to earn two points for the Spartans. Freshman Amber Way and senior Molly Jeakle nabbed 18th and 19th place, while sophomore Jessica Goethals rounded out the 5000-meter Spartan competitors.

Softball

Spartans make it 2 in a row over LMU

Michigan State held off homestanding Loyola Marymount, 7-5, on Saturday afternoon for their second win of the series. The Spartans had a pair of triples and two home runs among their eight hits, and overcame three errors - their most in a game this season - and a late charge by the Lion offense to earn the victory. MSU improves to 9-2, while LMU is now 4-7. The finale of the three-game series comes at 1 p.m. Sunday.

Celeste Wood went 2-for-4 at the plate with a two-run homer in the second inning, and also pitched a shutout seventh to earn her first save of the season. Lea Foerster went 2-for-2, scoring three runs and accounting for both a triple and a home run on the day.

Lindsey Matoi and Amanda Dirks each had two hits for the Lions, who had 10 hits on the day - but LMU stranded 13 runners as the Spartan pitchers bent but refused to break, giving up just two extra-base hits.

MSU scored three runs in the first and second innings, but relief pitcher Rachael Farrington certainly settled things down for the Lions, allowing only a solo home run to Lea Foerster in her 5.2 innings of work.

Valerie Kaff started the game and went 1.2 innings before Jordan Watson came in for 4.1 innings, scattering four hits among the 20 batters she faced for the victory. Wood earned the save by pitching the final frame.

- MSU Athletic Communications