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Kick to the head lands Clem on injury list

September 9, 2013
	<p>Junior goalkeeper Courtney Clem jumps to save the ball during the match against Oakland Sept. 5, 2013 at DeMartin Stadium. The Spartans tied the Grizzlies, 1-1, after playing two scoreless overtime periods. Khoa Nguyen/ The State News</p>

Junior goalkeeper Courtney Clem jumps to save the ball during the match against Oakland Sept. 5, 2013 at DeMartin Stadium. The Spartans tied the Grizzlies, 1-1, after playing two scoreless overtime periods. Khoa Nguyen/ The State News

Photo by Khoa Nguyen | The State News

Just six games into the women’s soccer season, the Spartans have already seen their injury list fill up. In Sunday’s game at New Mexico, they had to face a little more.

In the 27th minute of the Spartans’ (4-0-2 overall) 1-0 win against the Lobos (1-4-0), junior goalkeeper Courtney Clem left the game after being kicked in the face and was replaced by sophomore goalkeeper Gabrielle Gauruder, who went on to clinch the win.

MSU head coach Tom Saxton said after the game they wanted to monitor Clem for concussion symptoms and doesn’t think she will be out for an extended period of time.

Gauruder, who made her first appearance in goal this season, said after the game it’s never easy coming in under those circumstances, but it was unfortunate and she needed to give her team a boost.

“I just tried to come in with a positive attitude and keep my team enthusiastic,” Gauruder said.

Junior defender/midfielder Nicole Caruso, who scored the game-winning goal against New Mexico with seven minutes left, said it was crucial the team pick up its play after Clem went down.

“It’s not fun when your starting goalkeeper gets injured at all, but we knew our back up goalkeeper was going to do just as good and we had a lot of faith in her,” Caruso said. “It did make us play a lot harder, because we felt really bad she got injured and had to come out, so we really stepped up as a team.”

For the New Mexico match, sophomore forward Allyson Krause made her way back to the lineup after missing the Oakland game last Thursday due to a strained muscle.

Saxton said it wasn’t too serious, but they wanted to make sure Krause was rested with much of the season still left to play.

Heading into the season with only six upperclassmen — the fewest in 25 years — the Spartans knew they would need to rely on an abundance of young players. After the first weekend of games, however, the importance of those underclassmen became more substantial.

After games against Buffalo and Milwaukee to open the season, MSU lost two upperclassmen and starters — junior forward/midfielder Lisa Vogel and junior forward Paige Wester.

Vogel and Wester both have missed the last two weeks after knee injuries sidelined them. Saxton said they weren’t cleared for last weekend, but expects they will be cleared soon to start participating again.

“Because they’re both knees and soccer is such a knee intensive game, we’ll probably have to ease them back,” Saxton said. “That’ll also be a lift for us.

“I don’t think we’ll have anybody else who will be ruled out next week which is a nice thing, because it seems like every weekend we’ve had somebody get bounced out well.”

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