Field hockey travels to California for road games

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Enthusiastic about having the opportunity to join the competition on the West Coast, the No. 7 MSU field hockey team is traveling to California this weekend to take on California, Pacific and No. 20 Stanford.

The Spartans (2-0) are thrilled about the opportunity to play different teams and take on new challenges during their first set of away games, sophomore back Corey Block said.

“We’ve got three big games this weekend,” Block said. “It’s going to take a lot of work from our team because we have to take each game one at a time. It’s going to be a hard trip, but I’m excited because we get to go to California, and we don’t get there much. I’m also excited for another chance to test our skills.”

This is the first time that the Spartans have faced these three teams since 2008, when they defeated Pacific, 7-1, and edged out both Stanford and California in overtime with 3-2 final scores. After a successful opening weekend, MSU looks to repeat its dominance by using its recent momentum to stay focused.

“Our biggest challenge is that we have to find a way to stay focused, because playing three games in four days is like running a marathon and never training,” head coach Rolf van de Kerkhof said. “We just have to stay in the moment and play one game at a time and only focus on that game as long as we have to play.”

This is the mentality the Spartans have gone into the season with, hoping that if they forget all other distractions and focus on one game at a time, they’ll be unstoppable. The team said that this mindset is necessary, particularly against intense and talented opponents.

“It’ll definitely be a challenge, but part of field hockey is that the opponent is irrelevant,” Block said. “So really, we don’t look at rankings; we don’t look at stats; the other team doesn’t matter to us.

“Each game, we’re going to play exactly the same if we’re ranked higher or lower. I think all of them will be a good test of our team.”

Despite victories against Central Michigan and No. 10 Duke last weekend, the team agreed there are vital improvements that must be made to have a successful season. They have been working on transitioning the ball up the field and finishing on goal.

MSU is trying to move away from games that are determined by one goal or games that are tied to the end. Players said they are trying to perform up at their highest level consistently throughout an entire game so they are the clear, dominant force controlling the scoring and pace of the game.

Keeping their play at a high level, after every goal, the Spartans go all-out for the following two minutes to either keep their momentum going or to immediately respond with a goal.

“I hope we try to improve every time from here through each game,” van de Kerkhof said. “We will continue to work on communication and generating more quality opportunities than we had against Duke.”

The Spartans will take on Stanford in their final game of the weekend on Labor Day, which likely will be the most difficult game of the three. The Cardinal welcomes a new head coach, Tara Danielson, and also is joined by many new players, so the competition might be unpredictable for the Spartans.

MSU opens its away weekend with its first game against California today at 5 p.m. and then takes on Pacific on Saturday and Stanford on Monday.

“We know (Stanford is) pretty competitive, and they’re being coached by a great, new coaching staff,” van de Kerkhof said. “We want to see what they’re teaching their kids and see if we can do a better job than what they’re doing.”

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