“(The) second half I’m still trying to sort out myself,” Saxton said. “It might’ve been the heat or the injuries we have, but the effort definitely fell off. Im happy with the win, but the performance in the last 20 minutes was extremely disappointing.

“It’s one of those deals that coaches like. You get a win but you have a lot of things to work on and challenge your team with.”

Saxton said that after losing 3-0 against No. 1-ranked North Carolina a week ago, the Spartans (2-1) focused on offense leading up to the game against Western Michigan (2-1). The offense was brilliant at times, recording 14 shots on goal, but was only able to finish once.

“We did a really nice job of moving the ball and changing the point of attack and making improvements offensively, like we’ve talked about all week,” Saxton said. “Unfortunately we left a couple other chances out there. We had some really good penetration into their box, (but) didn’t make the goalie save too many shots.”

The goal the Spartans did convert, however, might be there most important of the early season. Junior forward and two-time All-American Laura Heyboer broke through for her first goal since returning from a season-ending leg injury suffered last year.

If anyone had a question about her leg, she answered it with Sunday’s goal, breaking away at midfield, stopping sharply to avoid the defender and launching the ball past Western Michigan’s Julia Francy in the 32nd minute.

“What helped me out is that Megan (Pines) made a great run and pulled some defenders away from me,” Heyboer said. “I was looking up trying to find her, trying to pass it to her, but the defenders followed her rather than me. I took all the space I had and tried to get a shot off and I got it.”

Heyboer said rehabilitating her leg has been hard physically and mentally, but she has put in as much time and effort as possible to get back to where she left off.

“You know, I’m 100 percent for where I should be right now,” she said. “I have good days and I have bad days but today was definitely a good one.”

Of MSU’s 14 shots, Heyboer recorded six of them alone and Saxton said one of the hidden strategies of the game was to get Heyboer a score.

“She’s still finding her game coming off of that severe injury, but today she was brilliant on the goal she scored and set up a couple other great chances for us,” Saxton said. “I think she feels good about herself and is ready to move forward.”

When things started going downhill on the offensive side in the second half, senior defender Courtney Shegos and the defense remained unbeatable. Although they had trouble clearing the ball, the defense was a brick wall, allowing only three good looks at the net.

Shegos said the defense was good, but she expected more from the team throughout the second half.

“We were on edge the last 15-to-20 minutes of the game,” Shegos said. “They were throwing all numbers at us and we were caught off-guard. They weren’t playing like that in the first half and we didn’t really know what to do.

“We’ve played against high pressure, but we got flat-footed and didn’t go at them the same way they were coming at us.”

The co-captain said the offensive game plan worked, but the Spartans will go back to practice and work on finishing those plays for the next game.

“We can show we can create something to score a goal but it’s that last thing to finish it off and we haven’t found that yet,” she said. “Hopefully coming up this next week we’ll focus on that more and see more goals on the scoreboard.”