Michigan State will take on Seton Hall at noon and Lehigh at 4:00 p.m. in a doubleheader Saturday. The Spartans are coming off a win in their season opener Friday against Merrimack by a score of 10-3.

Michigan State and Seton Hall will do battle at Shipyard Stadium in both teams’ second game of the season. Seton Hall dropped their opener against #20 Iowa, 5-2.

On Friday night, Michigan State sent Nolan Higgins to the mound and he came away with five strong innings only giving up three earned runs and striking out seven Merrimack batters. Probable starter Joseph Dzierwa will look to keep that trend going on Saturday against Seton Hall.

The Pirates faced off against top pitching prospect Brody Brecht on Friday night and he looked every part of that by striking out eleven batters in just 4.1 innings of work. Seton Hall’s Friday night starter Daniel Frontera gave up three runs in 3.2 innings of work against the Hawkeyes, while the bullpen worked 5.1 innings and only gave up two earned runs.

Michigan State will look to get their bats going early as opposed to Friday’s game where the Spartans only scratched one run against the Merrimack starting pitcher Tyghe Healy. The Spartans will also look to contain Nick Ferri who went 2-2 with a double against Iowa on Friday night.

Michigan State and Seton Hall went to battle in game one of Michigan State's doubleheader on Saturday. The Spartans sent starting pitcher Joseph Dzierwa to the bump to face off against Ryan Reich of Seton Hall. Both starting pitchers started the game on a good note with two scoreless innings but in the top of the third inning Seton Hall struck first with a two RBI single from Pat D'Amico to take a 2-0 lead.

The Spartans would answer in the fifth inning with three runs of their own, highlighted by a two-run home run by Jack Frank to take a 3-2 lead after five innings of baseball. Both teams went to the bullpen in the sixth and that proved to be the difference in this contest, as the Pirates would strike for five runs in the seventh inning against the Spartan bullpen.

Michigan State would respond with a run in the seventh as well to cut the Seton Hall lead to 7-4, but that would be the last time the Spartans would cross home plate in Saturday's battle. Seton Hall went on to tack on three insurance runs in the ninth inning and ultimately closed the game out with a 10-4 victory over the Spartans.

Michigan State and Lehigh will face off at 4:00 p.m. at Shipyard Park. Lehigh started their season with a loss, dropping their first game to MAC foe Ball State, 8-4.

There were some positives to take away from that contest as five Lehigh players had multi-hit games against Ball State. Lehigh totaled eleven hits but could only muster up four runs, all while leaving a whopping thirteen men on base.

The Spartans will have to note that Lehigh will get runners in scoring position but will have to hold strong to avoid giving up big innings - which is very similar to what Ball State achieved against Lehigh en route to an 8-4 victory.

Unfortunately for Lehigh, their pitching and defense let them down ultimately by giving up eight runs on ten hits and committing three costly errors. If Lehigh wants to compete against Michigan State on Saturday, they will have to clean up these areas of the game.

As for the Spartans, they will be looking to get off to an early lead and flow from there.

Coming off a loss in game one, Michigan State would be looking for a split on the day when they took on Lehigh at Shipyard Park. Michigan State would send Aaron Mishoulam to the bump to take on Cole Leaman for Lehigh. This game would be all about pitching and defense, which was polar opposite from game one of the doubleheader for the Spartans as there were 14 combined runs scored.

Although there was not much offense for the Spartans in this contest, they did draw eight walks in this nine-inning affair. Lehigh would get on the board first in the third inning with an RBI single from Rafe Perich to take a 1-0 lead over the Spartans.

As stated previously, the Spartans would have runners reach base but ultimately could not get them home on Saturday as they left eleven men on base. Lehigh would pad their lead in the fifth inning on an error from Spartan shortstop Randy Seymour to take a 2-0 lead, which felt almost insurmountable due to the lack of offensive production for the Spartans. The Lehigh bullpen would pick up right where Cole Leaman left off and finish off the Spartans, 2-0. The loss dropped Michigan State to 1-2 on the early season and Lehigh improved to 1-1.

Michigan State will take on Ball State, Sunday at 9 a.m. eastern time.

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