The No. 20 Michigan State Spartans field hockey team lost both of their games down in Indiana this weekend. The Spartans fell to the No. 18 Indiana Hoosiers by a score of 2-1, then lost a second game 2-1 in overtime the next day to the Ball State University Cardinals.

After defeating Rutgers last weekend, the Spartans improved to 2-2 in Big Ten conference play. The Spartans’ next Big 10 game was Saturday against Indiana.

The Spartans played to a scoreless first half against Indiana. Indiana peppered eight shots on Spartan goalkeeper Sierra Patton. Patton made five saves to keep the Hoosiers scoreless. Indiana goalkeeper, Maggie Olson, saw six shots from the Spartans and made three saves herself.

After a good defensive showing in the first half by both teams, the scoreless draw was broken in the 45th minute when Indiana senior Audra Heilman put one past the Spartan goalkeeper. Just under ten minutes later, Heilman scored her second goal of the game when she put in a rebound to make the score 2-0 in favor of Indiana.

Sophomore forward Megan Fenton made it interesting when she scored the only goal of the game for the Spartans with under 10 minutes to play. That goal cut Indiana’s lead to 2-1.

The Spartans ran out of time and lost the game to Indiana by a score of 2-1. Patton made a total of 14 saves for the Spartans and Olson made seven for Indiana. The Spartans are now 2-3 in conference play this season.

The Spartans looked to rebound in their second game of the weekend on Sunday when they traveled over to Muncie, Indiana to take on the Ball State University Cardinals.

Ball State opened the scoring in the 11th minute when junior Cameron Daniels netted one past the Spartan goalkeeper on a penalty corner.

MSU senior Abby Barker scored her 12th goal of the season to tie the game at 1-1. That would be the last goal scored in regulation by either team.

The game would go into overtime after a scoreless second half. This would be the Spartans seventh overtime game of the season. In the previous six, they had a record of 4-2 and had won their previous three contests that had gone into overtime.

In the fourth minute of overtime, Ball State sophomore Lexi Kavanaugh would win it for the Cardinals. The final score was 2-1.

The Spartans are now 7-6 on the season, with a record of 2-3 in conference play.  With a pair of conference home games, the Spartans will look to bounce back next weekend against Iowa and Northwestern.

Max Benoit is a multimedia journalist for Impact Sports

Photo: David Defever/Impact Sports