Senior Lauren DeBeau found an opening with just 4:57 left in the game and put the ball past Rutgers goalkeeper Meagan McClelland to give Michigan State a 1-0 victory over the Scarlet Knights in the final Big Ten regular season game for both teams.

Michigan State came into today’s game ranked as No. 6 in the nation, and the 2022 Big Ten Regular Season conference champion. At 13-1-3, the Spartans were riding an 11-game unbeaten streak going back to September 8, when they suffered their only loss of the season against Arkansas. Michigan State achieved their success this year thanks to the solid goalkeeping of senior Lauren Kozal, who sported a 0.44 goals against average this season.

But Rutgers teams coached by Mike O’Neill had never lost to Michigan State. In fact, Rutgers had never even had a match end in a tie against the Spartans. Entering today’s game, Rutgers boasted a 13-2-2 record and was ranked No. 14 in the nation.

So, it came as no surprise that the current Big Ten champion and the 2021 Big Ten champion played to a 0-0 tie after the first 45 minutes. In fact, the game was physical and rough, with both teams seeing players removed from the contest with injuries (Emily Mason for Rutgers and DeBeau for MSU), as well as yellow cards issued to Rutgers’ Riley Tiernan (dissent) and Sara Brocious (unsporting) as well as Michigan State’s Regan Dalton (unsporting) and Raegan Cox (unsporting). The first half of the match also saw MSU commit 10 fouls, while RU picked up four of their own.

But in the second half, bodies continued to hit the turf, as the physicality intensified. Michigan State clearly had the better of play, and in fact, at several points during the second half, Rutgers struggled to get the ball out of their own end of the pitch.

However, ultimately it was DeBeau, the Spartans' leading scorer, who re-entered the game after her injury and showed why she is one of the leaders of a talented MSU squad as she fired the game winner into the Rutgers net, putting the final punctuation mark on a near-perfect season for MSU.

The regular season ended in disappointing fashion for the Scarlet Knights, with two late game collapses at Michigan and Michigan State, and finish with a 13-3-2 mark. They will now need to re-group to prepare for the Big Ten Tournament, where they will likely face off against Northwestern in the opening round.