ANN ARBOR, MI – For weeks, Kenny Soares had been repeating the same message. As Michigan State’s losses accumulated and injuries thinned the roster, he kept insisting the Spartans had to keep going.
On Saturday night, that persistence brought the Paul Bunyan Trophy back to East Lansing.
Michigan State’s 15-6 victory over Michigan ended a six-game losing streak and gave the Spartans a result to match the belief players said had survived throughout it. In separate postgame interviews, defensive leaders Nikai Martinez and Soares and offensive linemen Nick Sharpe and Trent Fraley described a team that continued practicing with purpose, trusted its replacements, and finally finished a game the way it expected.
