Spartan Soccer Continues Spring with Inaugural Capital Cup

By Kara Keating, MSU Athletic Communications

EAST LANSING, Mich. – After Lansing gained a new professional soccer team, the Michigan State men's team and Lansing Ignite will go head-to-head for the first time for the Inaugural Capital Cup. The game will be April 16, at Cooley Law School Stadium at 7 p.m.

MSU head coach Damon Rensing said the new United Soccer League (USL) team will add to the soccer community, allowing fans more access to the game.

"I think there is a very good soccer community here in the greater Lansing area, mid-Michigan area," Rensing said. "And I think what's cool now is basically if you're a soccer fan, you have to high level soccer teams that you can almost watch your own between the Lansing Ignite and Michigan State men's soccer."

In his 20-year coaching career, Rensing has seen the soccer community grow, not only through MSU, but through Lansing and other mid-Michigan areas as programs gain more players.

Midfielder Giuseppe Barone has seen a major impact throughout his three years of the MSU student section, called the "Red Cedar Rowdies". After his freshman year, the section grew more and more especially after the team's advancement to the Final Four in the College Cup in 2018.

"From my freshman year, I don't think we had lights that year," Barone said. "And then once we got the lights and throughout the years it's just progressed and the Red Cedar Rowdies have always been great. Especially last year they were there for a couple of big games, Elite Eight game. That was awesome and one of the best experiences here."

The Ignite were founded back in October of 2018, and have held multiple tryouts for players. Their USL season started on March 30.

The Capital Cup experience will give the Spartans a taste of how it feels to play against a professional team, and also what it is like to be on one too.

"We have players that aspire to be professionals, and we're playing a professional team, so they should be better than us," Rensing said. "So it'll be good way for them to get an evaluation of where they stand from the professional side of things."

For Barone, this game allows the team to look at who will be the leaders for next season. The Spartans are regrouping after losing senior star players such as Ryan Sierakowski, DeJuan Jones and Jimmy Hague.

"I think we want to keep the same mentality," Barone said. "Obviously, we lost a lot of good players, good seniors and good leaders, so we want to keep that same mentality when to get new leaders and new guys that can contribute."

Along with leadership, Rensing will be looking for two other major factors that he brings in the spring practices.

The first is how players are performing individually and how they can perform within different environments. From there, he will focus on how the team will perform as a whole and the team's chemistry after last season to head into the fall. Overall, he wants to see how the team will react to certain situations on and off the field.

"How are we handling positive things that happened in the game?" Rensing said. "How are we handling negative things that happen to game or our leaders being positive and strong leaders. All those things, those are the main, the three main things that we'll focus on."

The Spartans will get a feel for playing on a field meant for baseball rather than soccer, with the game being held at Cooley Law Stadium in downtown Lansing. Many minor league soccer and baseball teams do share stadiums, but for some Spartans, this will be their first time playing on a baseball field.

The team has not practiced on the Ignite's field yet, but Barone is excited to see what the atmosphere will be like when he and the team step out to play the new professional team.

"I've seen a lot of stuff around the city, so they've been advertising well," Barone said. "I've had people ask me about it, so I think it'll be a good crowd, hopefully. And it should be real fun experience."

Spartan Soccer Continues Spring with Inaugural Capital Cup

Players Mentioned

Giuseppe Barone

Jimmy Hague

DeJuan Jones

Ryan Sierakowski

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