No. 8/12 Michigan State men’s soccer had its Senior Night plans spoiled Friday at DeMartin Stadium, as Rutgers walked out with a 4-1 win and handed the Spartans their first home loss of the season.
The night still belonged, at least in part, to seven Spartans who were honored after the final whistle: Colin Arce, Andrew Darakdjian, Leo Conneh, Will Eby, Richie Ludwig, Miles Merritt and Aidan Phelan. Michigan State head coach Damon Rensing made sure to put their run in perspective.
"We've had seven awesome seniors," MSU head coach Damon Rensing said. "Leo (Conneh)'s been with us for three months.
Colin (Arce), Aiden (Phelan), Will (Eby) and Richie (Ludwig) have been with us for four years, then obviously, Miles (Merritt) and Andrew (Darakdjian). So, they've all been great contributors in their own ways.
They're all great people. They all represented themselves, their families, Michigan State soccer, Michigan State athletics, and Michigan State University with class.
I'm very proud and fortunate to be able to coach all seven of them."
Rutgers set the tone early and carried a 2-0 lead into halftime. Amer Lukovic opened the scoring in the 18th minute, finishing his fourth goal of the season off passes from Dan Karsten and Francesco Di Ponzio. Then, in the 42nd minute, Zach Mastrodimos added another, scoring his third of the year on an unassisted long-range strike.
Michigan State answered quickly after the break. In the 47th minute, junior forward Oscar Huerta made it 2-1 with his third goal this week and fourth of the season. The sequence started with Miles Merritt at midfield, then moved to junior defender Brandon Munson on the left side before Munson fed Huerta, who slipped the ball past Rutgers goalkeeper Rafael Ponce De Leon.
That was as close as the Spartans would get. Rutgers regained control with goals from Erick Ruiz in the 60th minute and Lukovic again in the 74th, pushing the margin to 4-1.
Afterward, Rensing said the Spartans never really found their rhythm.
"I thought we started off really bright the first 10 minutes, and they just got a lot of numbers deep behind the ball. They didn't really press us, and they took away some space.
I thought we could have gotten behind and been a little but more aggressive," Rensing said. "I didn't think we were quite ourselves tonight, and which is uncharacteristic of this team.
But I think you've got to give some credit to Rutgers. They were good on the counter, and we knew that they were good in transitioning on restarts, and that's how they got their goals.
So, I think they scored some timely goals right when we were trying to grab some momentum and could just could never get a hold of the game."
Michigan State still had one late chance to trim the deficit. In the 87th minute, freshman midfielder Drew Rensing drew a foul in the box, but after a review, Huerta’s penalty kick was stopped by Ponce De Leon.
The loss drops Michigan State to 10-3-3 overall and 5-2-2 in Big Ten play. Rutgers improves to 8-6-2 overall and 6-3-1 in league action.
It also marks the Spartans’ second Senior Night loss to Rutgers in the last three years, after RU beat MSU 1-0 on Nov. 3, 2024, and leaves Michigan State at 7-1-3 at DeMartin. That denied the Green & White their first unblemished home season since 2017.
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