Sports

Knee injury cuts season short for SFP’s Verouhis

Watching has become as painful as walking for St. Francis Prep’s Joanna Verouhis.

“The girls know they have my support, but it’s just so hard for me,” she said. “I wanted to play so that this wouldn’t happen. I sat out last year. For my own self, for my own being I can’t sit and watch.”

The senior point guard will have to again miss the a season because of knee surgery. She attempted to play through the pain at first, but ultimately could not. Since informing the team that she would no longer be playing after a win over Poly Prep on Dec. 10, Verouhis has limited her time around the squad. She was not at the team’s upset over Bishop Ford on Dec. 15, the Terriers’ first league win in two seasons, but was back to exchange Kris Kringle gifts Dec. 23.

“If I was her I wouldn’t want to watch the team do everything that she can’t do,” senior Nicole Lenard said. “She feels like helpless.”

Verouhis experienced soreness since coming back to the court this summer after tearing her ACL a little more than a year earlier. She played the entire AAU season with the NYC Heat, participated when she could in the Terriers preseason workouts and played in scrimmages when her knee began to really hurt.

“I always had pain, but I felt it going up the stairs and in a specific spot,” Verouhis said. “I knew that could not be normal.”

An MRI revealed she had torn her meniscus in the same leg and had the option to have surgery and miss six weeks, or try to play through it with a fitted brace and pain killers. Verouhis opted for the latter and said he brace made her knee more stable.

She played in the Terriers’ first three games, all wins, and was averaging 13 points per contest. The three-year varsity player described being back on the court as a rush and “heaven.” But after two games in two days the pain had become too much. She decided it was in her best interest to get surgery on Jan. 8 and miss the remainder of the season.

“I personally don’t want to stop playing, but I don’t have a choice,” Verouhis said. … “This has to be taken care of for my own health.”

The decision caught St. Francis Prep coach JoAnn Wagner by surprise. She felt, knowing Verouhis’ love for the sport, that once she made the decision to play that she would be on the court in some capacity for the entire season and that the health of her knee would just be something that would have to be monitored.

“We did try to take her out so she is not pounding it the entire game, no matter what the situation was in the game, whether it was a close game or not a close game,” Wagner said.

Verouhis was originally supposed to return last January, but was not cleared by her doctor as a precaution, to make sure the ACL was fully healed. It was done to also lessen the chance of injury.

“I thought I waited long enough,” she said.

What the future hold is still up in the air for Verouhis, who has always dreamed of playing basketball in college. Prior to the first surgery Wagner said he was getting letters from Division I schools, but after two surgeries she will likely have to play at the Division III level.

“I told her you can’t give up on your dream,” Wagner said. “It’s just a detour around what you thought was going to be a straight path.”

Verouhis isn’t ready to start thinking that far, but understands it is an uphill climb.

“I don’t know if my leg will ever be the same,” she said. “But I am trying to keep positive.”