The Michigan State Spartans baseball team will play in Charleston, South Carolina this weekend for a four-game set against three separate opponents that extends into Monday.

Michigan State's first game this weekend will be against the College of Charleston. The game will be played at Ballpark at Patriots Point at 4 p.m. Eastern time on Friday and can be seen on Flo Sports. Additionally, the Spartans will face the Cougars once again on Sunday at 1 p.m. Eastern Time.

Michigan State started off last weekend with an emphatic 13-6 victory over USC Upstate, before dropping the next two games against Presbyterian and Gardner-Webb to fall to 4-3 overall this season. The Spartans will have a tough two-game set with the College of Charleston on Friday and Sunday.

Charleston who comes in with an equal 4-3 record, has won three games in a row, including taking two games from UMBC and one from the 2016 national champion, Coastal Carolina. Charleston opened up the season against nationally-ranked Virginia Tech and came away with a 1-2 record, taking the first game of the three-game set 5-2 and dropping the next two games against the Hokies by a combined score of 27-5.

The College of Charleston has produced little to no power hitting so far this season, only hitting three home runs in seven games. The Cougars' offense is led by senior infielder Joseph Mershon, who leads the team with a 1.022 OPS, .500 OBP, and three stolen bases in three attempts.

The Charleston pitching staff is led by senior starting pitcher Trey Pooser, who has a 2.13 ERA in two starts and a quality start against nationally ranked Virginia Tech. Overall, the Charleston pitching staff has a 4.57 ERA and a .227 batting average against through the first seven games of their 2023 campaign.

Michigan State baseball dropped game one of two this weekend against College of Charleston, 11-3.

The Spartans grabbed an early 1-0 lead in the first inning on an RBI groundout by Casey Hayes to score Trent Farquhar. Charleston would take the lead in the third inning, highlighted by a triple by star infielder Joseph Mershon.

Michigan State tied the game in the fifth inning and ultimately took the lead back in the sixth inning on a Sam Busch RBI double. Starting pitcher for the Spartans Joseph Dzierwa had only given up two earned runs before the seventh inning, but Charleston touched him up for four runs in the seventh and scored five total in the inning. Charleston would add four runs in the eighth on a Mershon grand slam, who finished a single shy of the cycle.

Michigan State baseball dropped the second game of two this weekend against the College of Charleston, losing 10-3 on Sunday, and giving Charleston a clean sweep over the Spartans for the weekend.

The College of Charleston got on the scoreboard early in this contest, scoring two in the first inning on a Trotter Harlan two-RBI double against Spartan starting pitcher Harrison Cook, who went 5.1 inning and gave up six earned runs on Sunday. Michigan State would answer in the fifth inning by way of an RBI groundout by Trent Farquhar to cut the Charleston lead down to 2-1. Charleston quickly answered again, plating two runs in the bottom half of the fifth inning to extend their lead to 4-1.

Charleston would keep the bats hot in the ensuing inning, scoring three more insurance runs, which was capped by a Joseph Mershon RBI single. Mershon was a thorn in the Spartan pitching staff's side this weekend as he added two more hits today and was a single shy of the cycle in Friday's game.

Christian Williams, MSU's unsung hero of Saturday's 19-10 win over Charleston Southern, went 0-for-3 with a hit-by-pitch after being rewarded with another start. Brock Vradenburg kept his hot start to the 2023 season up with a two-run home run in the eighth inning.

The Spartan offense didn't muster up anything after the Vradenburg shot and would eventually end up on the wrong side of the 10-3 loss on Sunday, which drops MSU's weekend record to 1-2 and overall record to 5-5 ahead of Monday's game against Air Force.

Michigan State will take on Charleston Southern at 1:30 p.m Eastern Time on Saturday at Nielsen Field at CSU Ballpark.

The second of three opponents for the Spartans this weekend are the Charleston Southern Buccaneers. The Buccaneers have played a tough schedule so far in their 2023 season, playing a three-game set against No. 6-ranked Florida team and a two-game set against the No. 2-ranked Tennessee Volunteers. The Gators and Vols have accounted for five of the Bucs' six losses this season. Overall, Charleston Southern sports a 3-6 record, with two wins over Marshall and a single win against the Citadel.

Outside of the five losses against the SEC powerhouses, the Bucs have outscored their opponents 32-16. Overall, the Charleston Southern offense has gotten off to a relatively rough start, sporting just a .209 team batting average, while hitting six home runs in nine games. The Buccaneers have a couple bright spots in their offense, as they are led by senior outfielder Casey Asman and freshman infielder JC Agard. Both Agard and Asman are batting over .340 with two home runs for each, and both also have an OPS over 1.000.

The Buccaneer pitching staff, like the offense, has gotten off to a rather slow start in the 2023 season. The Bucs' pitchers have an overall ERA of 6.59, while hitters are batting .302 against the staff. Senior reliever Daniel Padysak, who is a native of the Czech Republic, leads the Charleston Southern pitching staff with a 0.00 ERA in 10.0 innings with 12 strikeouts.

Saturday's contest between the Michigan State Spartans and the Charleston Southern Buccaneers was a wild back-and-forth offensive affair, which resulted in a 19-10 Michigan State win.

The Buccaneers started the scoring with two runs in the first inning, capped by a Kieran Davis home run off of Michigan State starting pitcher Andrew Carson who only lasted one inning. The Spartan offense would respond in the second inning with back-to-back home runs off the bats of Bryan Broecker and Christian Williams.

The Spartans would tack on three more runs in the second inning to take a 5-2 lead. The freshman would strike again for the Spartans in the third inning, as Christian Williams who was also making his first ever start, sent a 1-0 pitch to deep left field for his second home run of the game to make the score 7-2 in favor of the Green and White. Michigan State would tack on three more runs between innings four and six to take a 10-2 lead. Charleston Southern was not going away without a fight, as it went on to plate three runs in the sixth inning to cut the MSU lead to 10-5.

Jack Frank, who had two hits on the day, took a 1-1 pitch and blasted it over the centerfield fence to extend the Michigan State lead to 13-5 in the seventh inning. The Spartans and Buccaneers would go on to combine for eleven runs the rest of the way before Wyatt Rush would close the game out for the Spartans and end a wild affair in a 19-10 Michigan State victory.

The Michigan State baseball team will then face the Air Force Falcons at noon Eastern time on Monday at Shipyard Park in the fourth and last game of the extended weekend set in Charleston, South Carolina.

The Falcons have gotten off to a rough 2-7 record so far in the 2023 season, with series against Army, Navy, Texas Tech and a single game against Oklahoma. Air Force opened the season against Army, dropping two out of three against the Black Knights despite outscoring Army 15-14 in the series. The Falcons would go on to drop three of their next four against Navy and Oklahoma, but again no loss coming by more than three runs. Nationally-ranked Texas Tech broke that streak by outscoring the Falcons 27-9 in the two-game set.

The Falcon offense bats .252 overall through nine games this season, with 11 home runs. Air Force's offense is led by junior infielder Sam Kulasingam, who has a .500 batting average, with a 1.261 OPS.

The Falcon pitching staff has started off the season with a 6.51 ERA, while opponents have a .284 batting average against them. The Air Force pitching staff is led by lefty junior starting pitcher Seungmin Shim. Shim has posted a 1.50 ERA with 12 strikeouts in 12 innings.

Michigan State suffered its third loss of the weekend in Charleston, South Carolina on Monday after being defeated the Air Force Falcons, 7-4.

Michigan State started the game on a hot note with an RBI triple from Sam Busch on the 11th pitch of the at-bat. The Falcons would answer in the second inning with their own triple off the bat of Aerik Joe, which plated two runs. Air Force would add another run against Spartan starting pitcher Andrew Carson, who only lasted two innings and gave up three earned runs.

Neither Michigan State nor Air Force would plate any runs until the sixth inning, when Aerik Joe knocked in another run with an RBI double to extend the Falcon lead to 4-1. The Falcons would add to their lead with three runs over the next two innings to take a 7-1 lead over the Spartans.

Air Force starting pitcher Jake Sansing held the Spartan offense at bay, going six innings and only allowing one earned run. Busch chipped the Air Force lead down to five with another RBI extra-base hit in the eighth inning. The Spartans would add two more runs. but would ultimately fall to Air Force, 7-4 which dropped the Spartans’ record to 5-6 on the 2023 season.

Following this four-game set, Michigan State will also have a midweek game against Wofford in Greenville, South Carolina on Wednesday, March 8.

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