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EAST LANSING, Mich. – Spartan men’s soccer opened the 2025 season with its first training sessions on Tuesday. Michigan State began at 9 a.m. with drills and conditioning at the DeMartin Stadium practice field. 

They returned for a second training session in the afternoon.

MSU head coach Damon Rensing enters his 17th season at the helm of the Spartans. Assistant coaches T.J. Kolba, Reid Friedrichs, Nick Barry and Zach Carroll also return to the bench in 2025. Friedrichs and Carroll are both former Spartans.

“I thought it was great. It is just one of the best days of the year,” Rensing said. “We have a new look on life. It is great to see everyone together. We have been talking throughout the summer, but to get on the field and actually kick the ball to each other is great. We have a great core group of players and a young talented group of guys coming in too. I really like this group, and I think we are further along than we were at the start of last year. And today is just the first day.”

The Spartans open action with a pair of exhibition matches, starting on Sunday, Aug. 10, hosting Butler at 2 p.m. Michigan State’s final road test will come against UIC on Friday, Aug. 15 at 7 p.m.

Michigan State welcomes 12 newcomers this season, three transfers in Miles Merritt (Incarnate Word), Andrew Darakdjian (Oakland) and David Anderson (St. Johns). MSU also welcomes nine freshmen, including Luke Spadafora, who is the brother of Spartan senior Jake Spadafora.

MSU will take on eight teams that reached the NCAA Tournament last season, including Big Ten opponents Washington, Ohio State, Indiana, Michigan, UCLA and Maryland. Non-conference opponents Pitt and Kansas City also both reached the NCAA Tournament. Ohio State also reached the College Cup last season.

RIO GRANDE VALLEY – The University of Texas Rio Grande Valley (UTRGV) Vaqueros men’s soccer team kicked off a new season with their first practice of the season on Tuesday at the UTRGV Soccer and Track & Field Complex. 
 
There was a lot of excitement on the pitch as the Vaqueros welcome 20 newcomers to the squad. Getting on the pitch for the first time with the new group was a fresh start for the Vaqueros. 
 
“There’s a lot of new guys in,” UTRGV Head Coach Bryheem Hancock said. “Out of the 26, 20 guys are incoming with six guys returning. It’s a fresh start with a new group of guys that some of them are having their first preseason in college soccer and some guys who transferred in and are used to it. I thought the guys did a great job today from fitness testing to seeing where the group was to where they were when we let them play. It was good to let them get out that nervous excitement that comes with the first day of college soccer and then tomorrow back to business.”
 
The Vaqueros were put through a fitness test and then got into tactical work and even had some fun with 5v5 games. 
 
The Vaqueros will focus on building team chemistry with so many new faces. UTRGV will have just three home matches this season so that means there will be plenty of time on the road. 
 
To find success, Coach Hancock knows there will need to be an unbreakable bond throughout the season.
 
“With our schedule, we need to become a team in the first week or so,” Hancock said. “Then we use the next two weeks to become a family. The more we can get on the same page as a team first and learn to become a family the more we can have success this season.”
 
The Vaqueros will have about two weeks to get ready for their first of three exhibition matches. Those exhibitions will be vital in getting ready for their season opener at UCF. 
 
“Early match fitness is going to be vital,” Hancock said. “We have a preseason game each of the first three weeks to just test and see where we are as a group. We are focused on what we need to tactically, but we also need to see where our fitness levels are so that 22 days from now, we can be ready to go when we go to UCF.”
 
Fitness and team chemistry will be the biggest focus the next few weeks for the Vaqueros. The team chemistry process started way before the first practice, but the team chemistry is built beyond the pitch. 
 
“It starts with the evaluation phase, when we recruit these players,” Hancock said. “It’s about getting an understanding of how they fit in our style of play. After that initial phase, it’s about doing it on the field, in the classroom, in my office, and doing things individually and collectively as a group to make sure that we are organized.”
 
Tuesday marked the start of the journey for the Vaqueros here in 2025.
 
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Rob Beer is the sports editor for The Forum of Fargo-Moorhead. He’s been a journalist with Forum Communications since 1991. He can be reached at rbeer@forumcomm.com.

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