EAST LANSING- No. 23 Michigan State baseball heads down to Greenville, South Carolina this weekend to take on Harvard for their first official series of the season.
MSU will look to bounce back from last weekend falling to UCLA 15-9 in the final game of the Kleberg Bank College Classic in Corpus Christi, Texas. This marked the first loss of the year for the Spartans, and they will look to bounce back this weekend.
Earlier this week, the Spartans entered the National Collegiate Baseball Writers Association (NCBWA) top 25, ranked 23rd in the country. This marks the first time since 2016 that Michigan State has been nationally ranked inside the top 25.
Michigan State’s junior southpaw pitcher Joseph Dzierwa won his second consecutive Big Ten Pitcher of the Week. Making it the first time in program history for a Spartan pitcher to win the award for consecutive weeks.
He racked up 12 strikeouts in seven innings in a 9-3 win against Washington State while only giving up one hit. Dzierwa is 2-0 on the year with 23 strikeouts and a 0.00 ERA, becoming widely recognized as one of the top pitchers in the country.
MSU’s bats came alive over the weekend and even with a disappointing loss against UCLA, senior first baseman Sam Busch recorded the first home run of the year for MSU and had a three RBI game with a two-run single in the first.
He leads the team with five RBI’s so far this season. Sophomore second baseman Ryan McKay leads the team with a .316 batting average and senior center fielder JT Sokolove leads the team in hits with seven.
For the Harvard Crimson, they enter the weekend still winless on the year and will look for the first win in South Carolina. Harvard’s losses were against Indiana, Northwestern, and Fordham.
Although the trip to Cary, North Carolina was a trip to forget, junior second baseman Jordan Kang had a very nice weekend recording two home runs and four RBI’s. He is batting .400 which leads the team at this point.
The Harvard pitching rotation will look to turn things around after giving up a combined 33 runs in three games. As of now, sophomore pitcher Truman Pauley leads all pitchers with six strikeouts.
Michigan State and Harvard will square off this Friday and Saturday with first pitch scheduled at 6 p.m. and on Sunday at noon at Fluor Field in Greenville, South Carolina.
