Jefferson returned to the bench early in the second half on crutches with a large wrap around her knee. She was scheduled to undergo an MRI on Sunday night to determine the extent of the damage.

“We can certainly hope for the best, but until we let somebody take a look at her and do some further evaluation, we really don’t know (how long she will be out),” MSU head coach Suzy Merchant said.

The injury to Jefferson comes at a bad time for the Spartans, who lost sophomore center Allyssa DeHaan with an ankle injury in Thursday’s game against Grand Valley State and are still without junior guard Mia Johnson, who is expected to miss all of the nonconference slate after tearing her ACL in the summer.

Merchant, though, said she didn’t feel the need to play DeHaan on Sunday, opting instead to let her rest the ankle before Friday’s regular season opener, while calling the injury “day-to-day.”

“We obviously need to get her as ready as we can for the opener,” Merchant said.

For the second straight game, the Spartans came out sluggish, allowing the Lakers to grab an early lead on the hot shooting of center Jaclyn Armstrong, who scored 12 of her team’s first 15 points.

MSU, though, would find a hot hand of its own, as senior guard Courtney Davidson jumped off the bench and scored 11 first-half points to give MSU a 26-19 lead late in the half. Then the Lakers came right back and forged a 26-26 tie going into halftime.

“Courtney came in and gave us a real nice spark off the bench,” Merchant said. “And that’s something I think she can do. She’s a real spark plug offensively.”

A different team came to play in the second half, as freshman forward Kalisha Keane led the charge with 19 points and nine rebounds in the half.

She finished with 21 points and 12 rebounds for the game.

“One of the biggest things I was told to work on from last game (was rebounding),” Keane said. “So I just really wanted to focus on it today.”

The Lakers were able to hold off the Spartans early in the half as the two teams were tied at 34, but MSU went on a 20-3 run and never looked back.

“We knew we had to come out and finish the game strong,” Davidson said. “Lake Superior did a great job. They came out and gave us all they had.”

Sophomore center Lauren Aitch scored 11 points with nine rebounds and four assists while Davidson finished with 19 points, including a perfect 4-of-4 from 3-point range.

The Spartans now look forward to opening the regular season Friday against IUPUI in the first round of Preseason WNIT.