Injuries bring early struggles to Washington, Mississippi State

There is injury news coming out of Mississippi State and the University of Washington.

Mississippi State will be without sophomore Jacaira “Iggy” Allen, who tore her ACL and MCL in her left knee, according to a report from the Daily Journal.

Allen averaged 2.7 points last season, and underwent surgery Thursday morning.

“I just hate if for Iggy because she’d worked so hard to get to where she was,” head coach Vic Schaefer said, according to the Daily Journal. “She’d probably worked harder than anybody and was in the best shape of anybody on our team. She’d spent a lot of time getting ready for this season and I’m extremely heartbroken for her.”

As a result of Allen’s injury, Arkansas transfer Jordan Danberry will play when she becomes eligible on Dec. 10 rather than being redshirted this season.

In other news, Washington’s Natalie Romeo is out indefinitely, according to a report from the Seattle Times.

Romeo was the only returning starter from the 2016-17 season, and is out for “undisclosed medical reasons.” She averaged 9.3 points per game last season. The Huskies will also be without redshirt freshman GiGi Garcia, who will miss her second straight season due to an ACL injury, per the same report.

Unfortunately for the Huskies, Romero and Garcia aren’t the only injuries the team has had to deal with this season. In the spring, two returners had to medically retire from the game due to repeat injuries: Kelli Kingma who has had surgery on both wrists as well as Breanna Ruiz due to ACL surgeries.

Since Oct. 1, Washington has had another three players nursing injuries as Hannah Johnson (broken hand), Deja Strother (lower body extremity), and Mai-Loni Henson (back) have all been working to get fully healthy for the upcoming season.

In the same report, it was noted Keirra Collier and Missy Peterson are two more players still dealing with injuries from last January (lower-body extremitys) who head coach Jody Wynn is hoping to be back soon as well.