Michigan State women's soccer preps for NCAA tournament matchups with Harvard, potentially 1-seed BYU
Michigan State’s women’s soccer coach Jeff Hosler had no way of knowing that his team would be headed to Provo, Utah, for the biggest matches of its season — a second-round NCAA tournament date with 4-seed Harvard at 6 p.m. (ET) Thursday, before a potential matchup with top-seed and host BYU on Saturday.
But he knew the Spartans might face something like it. And so they prepared for this, spending six days in altitude out west, playing matches at Northern Colorado and the University of Colorado in late August.
They learned a few things. First among them: “We were out there way too long,” Hosler said. “Six days in that elevation is going to eat you up.”
This will be a slightly shorter trip, even if it goes well.
The venue, BYU’s South Field, is spectacular, with the Wasatch Mountains in the distance. And, if the Spartans get to Saturday night’s Sweet 16 game against the Cougars, they’ll face a sizable crowd. BYU often leads women’s college soccer in attendance, including several crowds in recent years of more than 5,500. MSU has scheduled a home-and-home series with BYU in 2026 and ’27.
First, however, is a matchup on Thursday with a Harvard side that Hosler says will test 5th-seeded MSU (13-4-3) in a lot of ways. The match can be streamed on ESPN-Plus.
“They’re a really intelligent group, they play at a very, very high level,” Hosler said. They have one world-class player with Jade Rose at center back, who started for Canada this summer with the full women's national team. They get forward very quick … They're a team that kind of looks very different when they’re in possession versus their out-of-possession moments. They're attacking shape out of the 3-6-1 (formation) is pretty intricate. It’s pretty complex.
“But I think, for us, stylistically, it's a good matchup, because we want to keep (possession). They want to keep the ball, as well. And I think our press has been really effective, especially in the last month, putting pressure on our opponents, turning them over and creating some crazy chances of our own.”
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Contact Graham Couch at gcouch@lsj.com. Follow him on Twitter @Graham_Couch.
This article originally appeared on Lansing State Journal: MSU women's soccer preps for NCAA tournament matchup against Harvard
