Second ACL Tear for Megan Buckland

News-Record.com reports:

For Megan Buckland, it’s a dream come true. The 19-year-old High Point native, once one of those screaming kids in the stands, arrived at the ACC women’s basketball tournament on Wednesday as a player for the UNC women’s basketball team.

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But it isn’t exactly the way she pictured it.

Buckland, whose team was eliminated Friday, had to sit on the sidelines for her first ACC basketball tournament after tearing her anterior cruciate ligament, or ACL, for the second time in December.

“It’s definitely heartbreaking for me, having to just watch,” she said at a practice. “I haven’t played a full season since my sophomore year in high school. That’s the thing that really gets to me.”

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Jess Knapp bounced back after ACL injury

CBS Philly reports:

The Penn Quakers women’s basketball team will visit Brown tonight as they come down the homestretch of the 2011-12 campaign.  There are just three games left in the season — and in the career of forward Jess Knapp, whose uplifting senior year has made a permanent impression on the Quaker program.

The 5’11″ Knapp missed her entire freshman season after tearing the ACL in her right knee.  She was able to bounce back, however, to become a key contributor as a sophomore and a junior.

Then she got her senior season off to a really good start and was playing well early in a game in California against San Diego State on December 30th.   That’s when things went off script.

“There was no contact.  I caught the ball sort of near the block.  Broke through, took a dribble, went to jump stop and on the jump stop – it wasn’t really landing on the jump stop, it was sort of like the power up off  of it – and something just went wrong.”

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Kennedy healing after ACL injury

NorthJersey.com reports:

Erika Brown’s comeback is an incredible testament to her will and desire to get back on the court just five months after ACL surgery.

And Kylla Champagne was playing at a Player of the Year-type level before she went down with an ACL injury last month.

But the one constant for Kennedy in the midst of the debilitating injuries has been the four key players that have been there all season through the highs and lows.

And the Lady Knights are on a high right now.

Fifth-seeded Kennedy defeated No. 9 Ridgewood, 54-40, in the North 1, Group 4 semifinals Saturday at Kennedy.

“It’s been crazy with our two stars injured,” Kennedy senior guard Ahnyyah Jackson said. “But we’ve fought through the adversity, and grew closer together.”

Jackson, guards Morgan Taylor and Koryn Lawrence-Barrett and sophomore forward Diamond Singletary each have picked up their games this season to help the Lady Knights make a run to their second consecutive sectional final.

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Building the Modern Athlete

ESPN reports:

"Performance Analytics," an MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference panel of John Brenkus, Mike McCann, Kevin Pritchard, Angela Ruggiero, Mark Verstegen, and moderator Peter Keating, says that while our understanding of the athletic body is fast-progressing, there are, and will continue to be, hurdles.

The issues, surprisingly, are more scientific than moral.

The central conflict comes between a player’s right to privacy and the team’s imperative to get as much actionable information about them as possible. Genetic testing that identifies predispositions to, say, ACL tears or inflammatory conditions, could help the team better identify risks and help the player avoid them. But it would also leave players at a disadvantage in contract negotiations and draft positioning.

Genetic testing also can create some red herrings. Brenkus pointed out that predisposition to a condition and actually having a condition are two different categories: Someone with a predisposition to ACL issues might have trained and strengthened their ligament to the point that the predisposition was mitigated or completely wiped out. In this case a monomaniacal focus on genetic markers can lead a team astray.

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Natasha Kelley inspiring her team from the sidelines

The Oklahoma Daily reports:

College has been a roller coaster for Natasha Kelley.

She spent most of her OU career fighting back from serious injuries and even competed an entire season without an ACL.

After suffering another season-ending injury in November, Kelley reluctantly retired from gymnastics.

But her impact still can be felt every day on the OU women’s gymnastics team.

Following her announcement, the team decided to dedicate this season to her, something senior Megan Ferguson said has been a huge help.

“All year, it’s been, ‘Do it for Tash,’” Ferguson said. “I think that’s kind of been driving us toward our goals and helping us.”

Junior Brie Olson said she hopes the decision is helping Kelley deal with the premature end to her career by taking some strength in what her teammates are accomplishing because of her impact.

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An injury won't stop Jess Knapp

Philly.com reports:

HOBBLING OFF the floor on Dec. 30 against San Diego State, Penn senior captain Jess Knapp didn't need a doctor to know that she had torn her left ACL.

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A defensive stalwart at power forward for the Quakers, Knapp had already lost her freshman season to an ACL injury to her right knee. She was intent on not letting it happen again.

"It was only nine games into my last season and my freshman year was taken from me," Knapp said. "When this happened, I was finally hitting my stride, so I said there is no way - I can't go out on this note."

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Learning to love the game again after injury

NewsOK Reports:

For as long as she can remember, softball has been a part of Megan Blevens' life.

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Blevens started playing at age 3. By 9, she was on a competitive team.

“We were traveling from state to state to state to state,” the Little Axe senior said. “Pretty much all of my time was spent playing.”

By the time her sophomore fastpitch season rolled around, Blevens could see a possible quick end in sight.

She wasn't having fun on the field, wasn't enjoying all the time she could be dedicating to other — new — things, spent on those weekend trips to play a sport she was growing tired of.

But in a basketball game in January 2010, things changed.

She was playing defense and came down funny.

“My body went one way and my leg went the other,” Blevens said.

Her anterior cruciate ligament was torn.

Her slowpitch softball season was lost.

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