ACL injuries plague many top girls' basketball teams

The "virus" of high school girls' basketball has tampered with the championship hopes of several of this week's state tournament qualifiers.

Anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) injuries sidelined prominent players on the rosters of Class 4A teams Hopkins and Bloomington Kennedy and Class 3A DeLaSalle.

Hopkins sophomore Viria Livingston tore her ACL in the second game of the season at Kennedy. A sharp moan rippled through the gymnasium when it happened. She remains out.

Kennedy lost junior guard Za'Keea Sa'eed-El to the same injury.

"The chemistry is different and everything shifted," Hopkins senior Mikaala Shackelford said, referring to Livingston's absence. "It was hard at first. You have to adapt to different changes."

Shackelford will wear a brace on her left knee as she tries to feed the Royals' run at a third consecutive state championship. She had to sit out last year's tournament because of an ACL injury.

DeLaSalle, also a defending champion, is the most recent ACL victim. Senior starter Joi Jones tore her ACL in the section quarterfinals.

Johnson, like Hopkins coach Brian Cosgriff and DeLaSalle coach Faith Johnson Patterson, wondered how ACL injuries would change the dynamics of their team. Who would fill the missing player's role? Will the defense be able to adapt to a new contributor? Will team chemistry be affected? Would a state tournament berth be in jeopardy?

These are just a few of the questions metro area girls' basketball coaches are faced with when one, two, three or even four varsity players become victims of ACL injuries. Edina coach Matt Nilsen referred to it as a "virus'' on the same day his niece, an eighth-grader, had her season with a White Bear Lake team cut short by an ACL tear.

When Minnetonka played Hopkins in the section finals last week, the Skippers were missing four players to ACL injuries, including 6-4 center Olivia Baker, and another key reserve.

"On every team you can name one or two girls that have gone through it," Waconia senior Fiona DeMario said. Four Waconia players suffered the injury within a year, including DeMario twice herself.

Dr. Michelle Gorman McNerney, who specializes in musculoskeletal primary care and women's sports medicine at TRIA Orthopedics, said the consequences of ACL injuries affect team success.

Hopkins found a way to rebuild. It meant freshmen and sophomores playing varsity and untested reserves being thrown into games. A lack of repetition led to more inefficiency.

The Royals' Section 6 championship opponent, Minnetonka, lacked the depth needed to fully recover from ACL injuries. The player who replaced Baker, 5-11 senior Taylor Fredrickson, also was a recovering ACL victim.

"It changed the dynamics of the team completely," Fredrickson said. "We lost our big post [Baker] right at the beginning of the season and that made me move from a four spot to a five spot and completely switched everyone around. It was hard to get a flow with starters and everyone in new positions."

Waconia lost in the first round, despite two upperclassmen playing through ACL tears. Nicole Dressen and DeMario missed last season because of ACL injuries. When the ligament snapped again, each player said they chose to ignore it. Waconia suffered six ACL tears within the past year. Dressen and DeMario wouldn't let the injury paralyze their team and said they signed legal documents to play without a doctor's clearance.

Wildcats coach Carl Pierson cringes when he hears "Dr. Jeffrey Mair" of Twin Cities Orthopedics. His name has become associated with his team's pain.

Mair is a father of two daughters in the Waconia girls' basketball association. He's eager to get his daughters into an ACL injury prevention program.

"It takes something like this to drive the issue home," Mair said. "I hope this takes [prevention] to the next level."

Researchers say the injury, which is more prone to afflict women ages 15 to 24, can be limited by proprioceptive training — teaching your brain where your knees are in relation to space and time — as well as plyometrics (jump training) and core strengthening.

"Just the fact that there is a prevention program out there, it is worth doing," Gorman McNerney said. "The evidence on these programs is great. It shows that if you participate in them and isolate specific muscle groups and improve strength and control, it limits injuries."