Spartans Tangle with No. 9 TCU in Preseason Action

The Deets
• Michigan State welcomes TCU to DeMartin Stadium for a pre-season exhibition matchup for both squads on Saturday (Aug. 9) at 12 noon.

• Both teams are in the top half of the United Soccer Coaches (USC) preseason national poll. MSU checks in at No. 12 - its highest preseason ranking in program history - while TCU is ranked ninth.

• There will be no webstream or live statistics for this exhibition. Tickets are available through the Spartan Ticket Office.

• MSU will officially open the 2025 season next Thursday (Aug. 14) on the road at Colorado.

About TCU
• The Frogs are under the tutelage of 14-year head coach Eric Bell. He is the reigning Big 12 Coach of the Year after guiding the Frogs to their third Big 12 Regular-Season title in five years.
   TCU enters the season with just nine players who saw time for the Frogs a year ago - it welcomes nine freshmen and eight transfers. The good news for TCU is that it returns five of its top eight scorers, including Seven Castain (13 goals and 32 points) and Bella Diorio (11 goals, 24 points) from a season ago.

Team Notes
• Michigan State is coming off a 2024 season in which it compiled a 14-3-5 overall record, and went 7-1-3 in Big Ten games. MSU finished fourth (25 points), one point out of third place and two out of second. The Spartans claimed Big Ten regular-season titles in 2022 and 2023, and advanced to the Sweet 16 in both 2023 and 2024.

• The Spartans lost 28 of their 45 goals and 80 of their 134 points from the 2024 team, as well as both keepers who played last season. Despite its graduation losses, MSU is ranked 12th nationally in the preseason after finishing the 2024 campaign 14th.

• The Spartans welcome nine new freshmen and two junior transfers to the roster of 19 returning players from 2024.

• In the four-year tenure of MSU head coach Jeff Hosler, MSU owns an overall record of 55-16-14, and is 28-6-6 in Big Ten play. In that stretch, the Spartans own the most B1G victories of the 14 teams who played all four years in the league (two ahead of Rutgers' 26) and the second-most overall wins, behind Penn State's 58. The Green & White is also the only team to finish in the top four of the Big Ten in each of those four seasons.
   Two of the newest members of the Big Ten own 71 (UCLA) and 55 (USC) victories over the last four seasons overall.

• The Spartan schedule features 18 games (plus a home exhibition), 11 home dates, and nine games against opponents who appeared in the final United Soccer Coaches top 25 poll last December. MSU will take the field against nine teams which qualified for the NCAA Tournament a year ago, including Notre Dame (No. 2 in the preseason poll); season opening opponent Colorado not only qualified for the tournament, but the unseeded Buffs reached the second round and the Irish advanced to the final eight. Of the nine B1G squads that made the NCAA Tournament field a year ago (including MSU), eight won at least one game, six advanced into the round of 16 and two into the quarterfinals. MSU's strength of schedule for 2025 is seventh nationally.

• MSU's 2025 recruiting class is ranked No. 12 nationally by Top Drawer Soccer, with all nine first-year players earning three-star rankings or higher and five players among the top 200 incoming freshmen per the outlet's individual rankings.

• The Spartans ranked fifth nationally in overall (28,397) and sixth in average (2,184) attendance last season. MSU's single-game attendance mark was shattered with 5,145 fans on Oct. 5 against Michigan, making it the sixth-most attended regular-season NCAA women's soccer game in 2024. The MSU-Arkansas game on Aug. 22 drew 3.180 fans, which ranked 30th last year.

Player Notes
• The Spartan roster is distributed nearly equally across classes, with seven seniors/grad students, seven juniors, six sophomores, and 10 freshmen.

• The Spartans return six players with 16 or more starts last year: Seniors Sofia Beerworth and Maggie Illig, juniors Bella Najera and Renee Watson, and sophomores Julia Belli and Kaleigh McPherson. A pair of Spartan starters from 2023 both lost the 2024 season to injury (Regan Dalton and Emerson Sargeant), and return healthy and return for the upcoming season to provide MSU a solid corps of seasoned veterans with an eye on making a run at its third Big Ten title in three seasons.

• Illig (Second Team) earned a spot on the United Soccer Coaches 2025 Preseason Defenders to Watch list and is a returning USC All-North Region Pick, earning a spot on the second team a year ago. She was one of four All-Region picks for MSU at the conclusion of last season, along with Meg Hughes, Kaitlyn Parks, and Third Team All-American Justina Gaynor.

• The early-season losses of Dalton and Sargeant left a hole in the Spartan midfield - Dalton was injured in the first game of the year, and Sargeant in the fifth. Sargeant had a 4-6-14 scoring line as a sophomore and already had four assists to her credit in the first four games of 2024 before suffering the injury.

• Junior Renee Watson missed a month of the Spartan season last year with the Canadian Women's National Team at the FIFA U-20 Women's World Cup. She returned to the team (and the starting lineup) for the Sept. 17 game against Nebraska.

• Illig and Najera (Third Team) are MSU's returning All-Big Ten players from a year ago. Najera led the 2024 squad in goals (8) and her 19 points ranked second on the team a year ago and leads all returnees.

• Belli and McPherson each garnered spots on the Big Ten All-Freshman Team a year ago. Belli started every game as a freshman and McPherson started 16 of the team's final 17 games. Each had a goal in 22 games.

• Eight Spartans received summer callups with their national teams. Najera and Maryland transfer Kennedy Bell participated in the US Under-20 Women's National Team camp, while Belli and freshmen Emily Graham and Maleeya Martin were at the US Youth National Team training. Senior Allie Mairn received another callup from Team Latvia (her fifth). Freshman keeper Noelle Henning was the Goalkeeper of the Tournament for Team Canada at the 2025 Concacaf Women's U-20 Championship in Costa Rica, earning a gold medal and a qualifying spot for the 2026 U20 Women's World Cup. She then earned a callup with Canada's Senior National Team, where she and Kayla Briggs saw a pair of friendlies in Toronto and Washington DC (against the USWNT).

Next Event

Players Mentioned

Sofia Beerworth

Kennedy Bell

Julia Belli

Kayla Briggs

Regan Dalton

Justina Gaynor

Emily Graham

Noelle Henning

Meg Hughes

Maggie Illig

Allie Mairn

Maleeya Martin

Kaleigh McPherson

Bella Najera

Kaitlyn Parks

Emerson Sargeant

Renee Watson