02/29/08
While athletic injuries are hit and miss, some can be very detrimental in affecting sports teams and their outcomes.
Two Baker Wildcat teams have experienced multiple athletes with injuries during their recent seasons. For the men’s basketball team, injuries plagued the group with five different players experiencing an injury throughout the course of the season.
Head coach Rick Weaver said the team continued to battle in every game no matter who was injured.
“It posted some challenges and as the old cliché goes, sometimes injuries are part of the game, especially this year,” Weaver said. “It’s all art of the game, you just have to keep on fighting and keep on going – there’s no other option.”
The men’s team lacked depth at some points in the season as seniors Ross Thompson, Andy Hannon, Matt Mills and Aaron Toren and junior Dain Dillingham all experienced some sort of injury. Thompson played with a knee injury all year and missed a game with an injury to his good knee. Several weeks ago, Mills made a quick trip to the emergency room for stitches above his eye, but was fortunate to not miss any games. Toren was sent to the bench for four weeks with a knee ligament injury in December.
More recent injuries occurred with Hannon, who suffered a back injury that sat him for three weeks, and Dillingham, who dislocated his toe at Benedictine College about three weeks ago to cut the remainder of his season short. Earlier in the year, Dillingham also missed two games when he tore cartilage in his knee.
Weaver said the team had more major injuries than normal, and more players had to miss games this year than in several past years.
“With the guys that were hurt, I was impressed with their rehab. They all came back except for Dain,” Weaver said. “You just have to go on, and it was a good thing we had a hard working bunch of guys. It offered a few challenges a couple of times when we were only suiting up nine guys.”
Also affected with a few injuries is the Baker baseball team, where four players are out, two with varsity experience. Pitchers Grant Lambert and Adam Tebben suffer from shoulder injuries that have delayed their baseball performance for the year, sophomore Danny Cast’s foot injury from last summer continues to heal and Dallas Polen suffered an ankle injury. All four players will redshirt for the 2008 season.
Head coach Phil Hannon said so far, the team’s hard work has helped with the injury situation.
“Guys are stepping up, that’s what’s good about having good, talented athletes; if one goes down you’d hope another player would step forward, and so far that’s happened,” Hannon said.
Hannon said he projected Lambert to provide depth to the varsity pitching staff this season previous to his injury. Lambert saw innings from the mound last baseball season.Previous to Cast’s injury, he would bring much experience to the team for his sophomore campaign in the outfield and from the plate, however, a serious injury last summer took his opportunity.
“I was working for a chimney cleaning company this summer and the ladder touched the power line, and I got electrocuted,” Cast said. “Electricity went through hands and down my body. My toe was partially blown off.”
Cast said he is no longer in the rehab stage, but sometimes still has pain when running. He said the hardest part about his injury is not being able to compete in games.
“It sucks because I go to practice and to do all that and then not being able to play and just being around the guys in games is hard,” Cast said.
Other teams have experienced minor injuries. Freshman Haley Oborny of the softball team broke her hand early in the season but is back in action for the ‘Cats.
Head track and field coach Zach Kindler said his team has seen slight injuries, but none have hindered to athlete performances. Kindler added that sprinter Kome Okiomah tweaked his hamstring in his second-place finish last weekend, but should be back and ready to run for the indoor national meet next week.