The Spartans have gotten into many tussles with SVSU, but have largely missed out on playing OSU, Kent State, and Kentucky over the last few seasons.

MSU has last played Kentucky in 2008, when they traveled to the Kentucky Invite. The teams are obviously very drastically different now, as the Spartans will have at most three players (Ian Childs, Sam Hiller, and Andrew Koczara) left from the team that made that trip, and the Wildcats have gone from being a below average team to one of the best. The last time UK and MSU played, State took the victory with a 4-2 scoreline. However, UK seems to be in good shape against MSU, as the Wildcats beat JMU 3-1 (a team MSU lost to 2-1), beat Kent State 3-0 (MSU beat them 4-2 in November) and beat OSU 4-0 (MSU won 3-1 in November) at Nationals last year. MSU did fare better against SVSU than the UK did (MSU lost 3-2, UK lost 4-0 twice) so this should be a fairly even match. The Spartans have to avoid thinking UK isn’t as good as them just because they are an out of state school, otherwise they could get beaten just like they did by JMU. The three players to watch on UK are Wes Hopkins (#1), Zac Brown (#13) and Thomas Kidd (#2). Hopkins has the league’s fast arm (clocked in at over 80 mph) and will be a target for the Spartans to eliminate early so as to limit the damage he can do. Zac Brown is a good strategist and is the team’s captain. Kidd was named to the All-NCDA team last season. Overall this is a very dangerous team, and could be a Final Four favorite (at the very least) this season.

Kent State has played the Spartans very little over the past few seasons, in fact they’ve only played them twice since the 2008-2009 season. In 2009 they played at the BGSU Invite, and they played to a rare NCDA tie. Last season they played at the MSU Invite, and Michigan State knocked off Kent 4-2. Kent State has already played one match this season, beating OSU 2-1 in Kent. The Golden Flashes are probably the loosest, most free flowing team that MSU will play in the round robin, and they typically play fast. However, with a new leadership group, it will be interesting to see how the Flashes play. Kent is on a low scoring streak against teams with winning records, having scored 3 or less points in 8 straight matches against quality competition. They’ve were shutout three times last season as well, and in their losses last year they averaged .667 points. Kent State in their victories gave up a low amount of points however. So it comes down to if MSU can score a couple early points, they should have the match. If Kent State can get the momentum, they can take the match.

Ohio State is the prototypical “catch first” style team, with a very limited amount of power arms but being loaded with defensive minded players. The Buckeyes will need to capitalize on Spartan mistakes, especially on the less experienced Spartans, and they’ll need to slow the game down the their tempo. OSU plays one of the slowest games in the country when they’re on, as evidenced by holding GVSU to a 1-0 Laker victory in Nationals 2011. MSU beat their Big Ten rival 3-1 last season. For MSU to win, they’ll have to do what OSU is trying to do- dictate tempo and force Buckeye mistakes. While the Spartans play a slower tempo than average, they can’t allow the game to get slowed all the way down to OSU’s level. MSU is also bringing a catching team next weekend, but they should have more power arms in the stable than OSU. So if the Spartans team throw, block for each other, and catch OSU’s solo throws, this match will belong to Michigan State.

Saginaw Valley has been a tough foe for MSU in the past four seasons, and they had some very close games last season. After MSU pulled off upsets at the MDC in 2010 and 2011, Michigan State failed to beat Saginaw Valley in any of their three duels last year. In the first match up the Spartans took a 2-1 lead going into the half at SVSU before allowing the Cards to make a furious comeback and win 4-2. In both their second (at MSU) and third (at SVSU) matches, SVSU jumped out to 3-0 leads at halftime but had to hold off Spartan rallies both times to win 3-2. While they have lost the majority of their “core” players, some players (such as #77 Spencer Jardine and #13 Torrie Peplinski) who have been thorns in the Spartans side return. While Jardine has a cannon to go along with great leadership qualities and catching abilities, Peplinski is one of the best catchers in the league. For MSU to get a W in this match they’ll have to focus on getting them out and forcing some of the rookies or inexperienced veterans for SVSU to make plays. This will actually be the first neutral court fight for the two teams since at BGSU in the Fall of 2009.

All four of these schools pose serious threats to MSU in the round robin, but they are also four beatable schools for State to climb to the top of the standings.