SDSU’s Madysen Vlastuin will miss the rest of the season with a knee injury.
Becomes the fourth Jackrabbit player to sustain a season-ending injury
Vermillion, South Dakota (Dakota News Now) In the middle of an eleven-game winning streak and the pursuit of another Summit League title and an NCAA Tournament bid, the South Dakota State women’s basketball team must overcome yet another serious injury to one of their key returning and rotation players.
Prior to Friday night’s game at the University of South Dakota, the team heard that junior guard Madysen Vlastuin will miss the rest of the season due to a significant knee injury. The Lennox native started 20 of the Jacks’ 21 games this season, averaging seven points and five rebounds per game.
She is the fourth player this year to miss a season due to injury, following Haleigh Timmer, Kallie Theisen, and Hillary Behrens.
SDSU will visit Oral Roberts next Saturday at 2:00 p.m.
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San Diego State trailed 9-2 before winning by 34 points, however Darrion Trammell and Jay Pal both left in the second half due to injury.
Here’s how the NAIA University of Saint Katherine Firebirds began their game against the NCAA Division I winners from last season:
Suddenly, everything seemed magically possible: David raining (or reigning?) threes on Goliath, an NAIA school that didn’t exist 13 years ago, racing to a 9-2 lead in a 12,414-seat arena against a massive state school that has played men’s basketball for more than a century and routinely boasts one of the nation’s most suffocating defenses.
The logic behind scheduling an NAIA school from San Marcos two days before hosting the Pac-12’s Stanford was to loosen their legs after a 10-day break between games for final exams.
Or put another way: Better to be rusty and trail 9-2 against a team whose starting lineup goes 5-foot-7, 5-10, 6-3, 6-4 and 6-6 than Thursday’s opponent that starts 5-10, 6-5, 6-7, 6-8 and 7-1.
The only problem with playing two days apart, of course, is if a player gets hurt. Or two do.
Darrion Trammell limped off after re-tweaking an ankle he rolled against UC Irvine. And Jay Pal was elbowed in the face and likely was headed for X-rays to determine if he broke his nose. Both are, at a minimum, questionable for Stanford with less than 48 hours to heal.
“The only thing that happened that was tough was we had a couple injuries,” coach Brian Dutcher said, “and that’s what you don’t want to have happen in a tune-up game.”