Senior forward Cara Freeman throws her arm around junior forward Laura Heyboer in celebration after MSU scored its first goal in the game against Eastern Michigan on Friday at DeMartin Stadium at Old College Field. The Spartans went on to score three more goals, for a final score of 4-0.
The MSU women’s soccer team went with a new formation in an attempt to improve a struggling offense Friday against Eastern Michigan.
“We changed our formation up so we attacked with a lot more girls,” sophomore
forward Olivia Stander said. “We have our two outside (midfielders) that play more as
forwards so we were able to get a lot more people up on the attack so we could get a lot more shots off that way.”
MSU (3-1) took on Eastern Michigan (2-1-1) whose goalkeeper, Monique Budani, had
not allowed a goal in more than 200 minutes entering the game at DeMartin Stadium at Old College Field.
The Spartans, however, were not about to let that streak survive the game. MSU junior
forward Laura Heyboer stole the ball at midfield, drew the defense, passed it to an open Stander who then struck the ball past the Eastern Michigan keeper in the 29th minute.
“It says how unselfish (Heyboer) is,” Stander said of the goal. “She doesn’t care who scores as long as the team wins. She’s a great leader for our team and she leads by example.”
Stander said the team had worked on the new attacking style in practice during week and her goal was a result of that.
“With the new formation, they just keep stressing to me that I need to run up the field and help Laura out when she has the ball,” she said. “I was just trying to follow her up and make that run to give her an option whether she passed to me or not.”
Shortly after the goal, Heyboer went down holding her right leg and in pain. The crowd went completely silent and a nervous tension overcame the crowd as Heyboer limped off the field.
Heyboer suffered a season-ending broken leg last season. Fortunately, Friday’s injury was not the same leg.
“I got taken out from behind a little bit,” Heyboer said. ”I got a knee in the calf and just cramped up. That’s something that I’m not just going to take as a little injury because it’s going to last longer into the season. I just got to stretch it out, ice it up a little bit and get myself ready for Sunday.
MSU head coach Tom Saxton, is very careful with injured players, especially after the team suffered five season-ending injuries last year. However, the coach decided to put Heyboer back into the game in the second half.
“I just have to trust her that she’s going to be honest with us about her injuries,” Saxton said. “The kid’s a warrior and even if she’s not on the ball she’s always drawing the attention of the team. We needed to put this team away in the second half so we needed to make sure we put her out there.”
Heyboer returned and in the 60th minute, with an assist from sophomore midfielder
Jordan Mueller, netted a goal to put the Spartans up 2-0.
Junior midfielder Mikki Dennis also scored in the 69th minute and Kelsey Kassab recorded her first career goal in the 86th minute.
Heyboer said she was proud to see the offense get things going Friday.
“Our offensive side today did a lot better, but our defense was so solid,” she said. “I think going into Sunday’s game we have to bring that and we have to bring that on the road.
“Sometimes the road games arte so much harder but we have to bring that same intensity we ended with today.”
Saxton said that seeing Stander and Heyboer mesh so well together was the key to the
game.
“Seeing the chemistry and the unselfishness between the forward line is probably the
best thing we could see today,” Saxton said. “(Stander and Heyboer) both showed
unselfishness for each other, and for that matter, the other players that got in the box with
them.”
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