Abby Smith out for Breakers with season-ending knee injury

Abby Smith has suffered a strained ACL and torn patellar tendon, which will take her out of the rest of the season for the Boston Breakers. She appears to be looking at approximately six months of recovery time.

Smith landed awkwardly in a non-contact injury in last weekend's game against the Chicago Red Stars, seen in the 29' here.

"Losing Abby is a blow, purely and simply because she came in and did really well against Portland and Chicago. It's disappointing for her because she got herself into the team with Libby's [Stout] injury," said head coach Matt Beard via team press release.

It was only Smith's second cap for Boston, but she was already making a strong case to compete with Stout for the position of starting goalkeeper.

The Breakers have now turned to last season's second keeper behind Alyssa Naeher, Jami Kranich, who they waived in early April. Kranich re-signed with the team for 2016 after earning eight caps with Boston in 2015 and a 2-4-2 record and 1.63 goals against average.

Kranich is already familiar with much of the Breakers back line, so hopefully any readjustment period is short and sweet.

The Breakers are on the road this weekend playing Sky Blue FC away on Friday, May 13 at 7 PM ET.