East Lansing—Michigan State men’s soccer wrapped up its last non-conference game of the season on Tuesday night with a 2-1 victory over the Saint Mary’s Gaels. Tuesday’s contest was Breast Cancer Awareness night, where the Spartans wore pink ribbon pins to raise awareness.

The Spartans’ record is now 5-5-2 on the season, while the Gaels completed an eight-match road trip.

Senior defender Will Perkins opened up the match with an early goal off his right foot that hit the post and then bounced into the left side of the net. 

Perkins scored his first goal in a month after missing three games with an injury.  

“It feels good, like I said earlier in the season I want to get in, I want to score goals,” Perkins said. “So just to come back after being out for two and half weeks, it was really good to score.” 

Three minutes later, graduate student Jack Beck added to the Spartans’ lead with his second goal of the season.

“Coming out in the first half, we were really coming off of the response from our last one, coming out strong, press them, put good pressure. That was exactly what we did. We had an early goal and we didn’t back off, kept doing the same thing and the second one came,” Beck said.

As the rain began to fall at DeMartin Stadium, MSU started to slow down the rest of the way. Saint Mary’s senior forward Greg Brighton would cut the lead to 2-1 with 20 minutes left to play. 

“Probably just try to put together a full 90 minutes. I think we got away from some things that we did well,” head coach Damon Rensing said. “When we do the things we’re trying to do and when we stick to it, it is really good.” 

Goalkeeper Owen Finnerty recorded three saves in the match, which helped MSU earn its fifth win on the season. 

Michigan State will return to conference play this Sunday. They will host Rutgers at 2 p.m. 

“As far as the Big Ten goes, this is a massive game,” Rensing said. “They’re good and well coached. We are going to have to put a full 90 together and if we do that we have a great chance to win the game.”