Michigan State men's soccer was boosted by a pair of goals and two assists from freshman forward Jonathan Stout for a 4-3 win over Rutgers in a Big Ten Conference clash at DeMartin Stadium.

The Spartans have won their last two matches overall and are unbeaten in five of their last six matches. Sunday's match was MSU's penultimate home match, as the Green & White improved to 6-2 at DeMartin Stadium. The win moved Michigan State to 6-5-2 overall and 3-1-1 in B1G action to tie for second in the league standings, while Rutgers slides to 6-3-5, 2-2-2 in B1G play.

"I am extremely proud of our guys. We got off to a great start today," MSU head coach Damon Rensing said. "Rutgers is a really potent team. I think they are one of the top teams in the country in goals. So for us to score four on them and outscore them was huge. And now we are sitting tied for second-place going to first-place Maryland on Friday."

Stout entered Sunday's game with one goal and two assists on the season, and doubled that total with two goals and two helpers on the day.

"I had that one shot in the second half, the goalie just barley nicked it," Stout said about nearly getting a hat trick in the second half. "I wanted that one pretty bad, but I can't complain. I got two goals and that's enough for me."

Both of Stout's goal were off nice passing from Spartan teammates and both had slight deflections at some point.

"Oh man, so good," Stout said about the feeling of scoring two goals in a game. "I mean God blessed me a little bit, two deflections on the goals. Little bit of luck, little bit of skill. Either way, a goal is a goal and I'll take it, just try to move forward and get even more the rest of the season."

Redshirt-junior midfielder Kellan Landefeld netted his first goal of the year for the third goal of the day, while junior forward Greyson Mercer netted the Spartans' fourth goal of the game and his team-leading fourth of the season. Graduate senior netminder Owen Finnerty made six saves on the day, his seventh game of the season with five or more stops.

MSU starting the scoring in the 11th minute on Stout's first goal, as he worked a nifty give-and-go with redshirt-senior defender Will Perkins inside the Rutgers box and tapped it past Scarlet Knight keeper Ciaran Dalton for the early 1-0 Spartan advantage.

Roughly 10 minutes later, Rutgers got on the board with the equalizer off a corner kick, with Hugo Le Guennec getting the ball past Spartan graduate senior netminder Owen Finnerty to even it at 1-all.

In the 30th minute, Stout took a nice dish from senior midfielder Louis Sala and fired a shot from the top of the 18-yard box and it deflected off a Rutgers defender and looped over Dalton and into the goal to put MSU on top, 2-1.

The Spartan goal advantage was short-lived as Rutgers scored less than 20 seconds later off the restart to even the score back at 2-2.

MSU made sure not to go into halftime tied, as redshirt-junior midfielder Kellan Landefeld smacked a left-footed goal to the bottom left corner for his first goal of the season in the 41st minute to give the Spartans a 3-2 lead. That remained the score into halftime, despite MSU getting out-shot, 13-6, in the first half, but Michigan State had three shots on goal, all going in the net, while Rutgers had five shots on goal, with Finnerty making three saves in the first 45 minutes.

The score stayed 3-2 for most of the second half, with both teams going back-and-forth with aggressive play, but no goals.

That ended in the 74th minute when Stout slid a pass through the Rutgers defense at midfield to an onward attacking Mercer. He then drove into the Scarlet Knights' third dribbling through and around the Rutgers defense, then fired a shot from the top of the D at the box past a diving Dalton and into the lower left corner of the net to put the Spartans ahead, 4-2.

The Scarlet Knights did not go quietly into the brisk autumn afternoon, as MD Myers scored with 58 seconds left in the match to pull the visitors within 4-3, but the Spartans got the ball deep in the corner and ran out the clock to secure the Victory for MSU.

Michigan State has just three Big Ten matches left in the regular-season, as the Spartans hit the road to play at Maryland on Friday, Oct. 21 and at Ohio State on Tuesday, Oct. 25, before the regular-season finale vs. Northwestern on Sunday, Oct. 30.