“The most important thing, to be honest with you, is to make sure we learned a lesson out of Oakland and not to look past an opponent and come out ready to play,” Saxton said. “I was talking to the men’s coach this morning, and he said in his post game comments on Sunday, ‘There’s not any easy college games.’

“Bowling Green might not be as ‘big name’ as New Mexico, (but) we need to come ready to play. That shows us that we’re maturing as a young team.”

MSU then will follow up on Sunday against Eastern Michigan (1-3-1) team in Ypsilanti.

EMU took both then-No. 23 Ohio State and No. 11 Michigan to overtime, but lost each game 2-1. A week later, the Eagles lost to an undefeated Indiana team, 1-0.

A minor concern early in the season for the Spartans is capitalizing on scoring opportunities.

With the fewest shots in the Big Ten with 72, redshirt freshman midfielder Jessica White said the Spartans need to focus more on offense.

“We need to work on making sure we don’t just play defense,” White said. “We all (need to) get involved in the attack and string passes together.”

Thus far in the season, MSU also has seen a couple key players lost to injury.

Junior midfielder/forward Lisa Vogel and junior forward Paige Wester both injured their knees in the first weekend in games against Buffalo and Milwaukee. Junior goalkeeper Courtney Clem also was injured last weekend against New Mexico when she got kicked in the head and had to leave midway through the first half.

Saxton said after practice Wednesday, he was unsure if they would be back for Friday’s game, but all three players were making practice.

Sophomore forward Allyson Krause said if they won’t be able to play this weekend, the team will need to pick up its play to make up for the losses.

“We need to step up as a team,” Krause said.

“(Our bench) needs to fill their positions the best they can.”