Emerson Sargeant bounces back from injury to post career year, help MSU make program history

EAST LANSING, Mich. (WLNS) – Emerson Sargeant was a driving force behind the deepest postseason run in Michigan State women’s soccer history this fall. The redshirt junior midfielder returned from a torn ACL to earn First Team All-Big Ten honors.

Sargeant’s story at MSU began long before she was a prized recruit for head coach Jeff Hosler. Sargeant learned to bleed green as a little girl growing up just an hour away in Hartland, Mich.

“I grew up going here and watching all the sports because both my parents went here,” said Sargeant. “So this kind of just felt like a second home to me. So it never really felt like too much of a change.”

Her comfort level at MSU helped her step in and make an immediate impact, as she earned All-Big Ten Freshman Team honors in 2022.

As a sophomore, she started 21 of 22 games, scored four goals with six assists, and was named Second Team All-Big Ten.

Sargeant was a standout from the start, but five games into her junior year, everything changed.

She tore her ACL in a game against Xavier. In an instant, her season was over.

“It was definitely a drastic change,” she recalled. “It was the fifth game of the season last year and it was kind of weird because one of my other teammates had just torn hers a few games before that so it was kind of like back-to-back. But definitely, I just remember being kind of shocked because it’s one of those things where you think it’s never going to happen to you until it does. But I had so much support from my teammates and coaches that made it not as bad as it could’ve been.”

Sargeant said she knew how serious the injury was immediately.

“Everyone talks about when it happens you kind of just know, and I kind of just knew. It was one of those things with the pop and everything and how it felt.”

A long rehab process lay ahead, but teammate Regan Dalton was going through the same injury and recovery at the time. Sargeant said having her alongside through every step of the process made the journey back more bearable.

“Having her was probably the biggest help ever through it all because I never felt like I was alone. But obviously my teammates and my coaches were a really big help too but it’s definitely, when you’re in it, it’s kind of hard for people on the outside to look in and relate if they haven’t had it happen to them. So having her and going through it together was awesome.”

As the weeks went by, Sargeant and Dalton stayed focused on celebrating incremental progress.

“You’ve got to look at the little wins. So, it was like we kind of had little milestones I guess. So even if it’s super small, you had to celebrate them, especially in the beginning. It’s like, bending your leg again and putting pressure on it and even walking normally again. So, we tried to just set little milestones every month and what you wanted to reach. I think every time I reached one of those it kept me going a little bit longer until I got to the next one.”

After about nine months, Sargeant finally reached the big milestone: she had been fully cleared to return.

However, the news came right when the team went its separate ways at the start of the summer. With no team activities, Sargeant had to ramp up on her own, which she said was a blessing in some ways.

“I also think it allowed me to build trust with myself throughout that whole summer of just training on my own and starting to train with other people, it just prepared me to come back and be ready to go when the season started.”

When the team came back together to begin the 2025 season, Sargeant was ready. She even scored a goal on a penalty kick in the team’s preseason exhibition against TCU.

She was able to take the field in the starting lineup for the season opener against Colorado, and she stayed in the starting lineup for every game this season.

“Every day, I don’t take it for granted now,” she said. “I think every practice especially, there’s never a day where I’m like ‘oh I don’t want to practice,’ because I think about for nine months I couldn’t practice. So, I think it just made me hungrier and wanting, I just realized how much soccer is important to me.”

As the season went on, Sargeant rediscovered her all-conference form. She scored her first goal in late September at Minnesota and followed it up with a two-goal day in the team’s next game against Wisconsin. By the end of the regular season, she had scored five goals.

Then came the Big Ten Tournament, and in the semifinal game against UCLA, she provided one of the best moments of the season. She scored both goals in the team’s 2-1 win over the Bruins, including the dramatic game-winner in overtime.

“That was just awesome,” she said. “I mean one of the best feelings ever. Going into that game obviously I didn’t expect it to go that way or for it to go to overtime or anything. But yeah, that was probably the best moment of the season so far is just that goal and celebrating with my teammates. It was just awesome.”

One final goal in MSU’s NCAA Tournament First Round win over Milwaukee gave Sargeant eight for the season, a career high.

After the long road back, she had re-established herself as one of MSU’s top players, and one of the best in the Big Ten. Seeing a season of such personal importance culminate with the team’s first ever trip to the Elite Eight was a dream come true.

“I’m so proud. I mean, it’s been three years in the making, I feel like, getting past that Sweet 16 round. It’s just something that we’ve always prided ourselves in is trying to do better each year and it just feels so good that I’m playing again and we’re back and we’re making history. So I just, it’s awesome. I’m so proud of everyone.”

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