Thomas out for season with knee injury
WBB: The sophomore forward hurt her right knee last Friday vs. Indiana State
Everyone’s worst fears were confirmed Friday as Murray State Women’s Basketball Coach Rechelle Turner announced sophomore forward Destiny Thomas will miss the rest of the season with a knee injury.
Thomas collapsed to the floor holding her right knee during the 4th quarter of Murray State’s win over Indiana State last Friday. While everyone around the Racer program waited for the results of the MRI on Thomas’ knee to come back, Turner was trying to cling to the slim hope that maybe the injury wasn’t as serious as first thought. Unfortunately, the expected news ultimately arrived.
“You always hope for a miracle, but we were pretty sure from the onset that it wasn't going to be good news,” Turner said. “She had already been to the doctor, and the doctor had kind of talked her through that. When the MRI comes back and confirms it, it's up a whole other level of emotion knowing that she's going to have to go through surgery and go through the rehab and everything to get back to us. It's part of the process, and it's part of the game. It stinks and we hate it for Des and we hate it for our team because she's such a big part of what we do. We've rallied around her and we’ll continue to support her the entire time, and we look forward to having her back with us as soon as possible.”
This is the second knee injury that has impacted this Racer team this season. In the team’s second practice of the summer, freshman Cam Hoover tore the ACL in her right knee and was ruled out for the year. Much like Thomas, Hoover had already torn her left ACL during high school, and now was facing a second rehab on the other knee.
For the second time in eight months, Turner is having to navigate not only changes to her roster and rotations, but also making sure the rest of her team is emotionally handling the loss of one of the team’s brightest lights.
”That's probably the most difficult part because Des is everybody's best friend on the team,” Turner said. “She's just one of those kids that everybody loves and everybody loves to be around, so you have to fight through those emotions. I don't know why it happened this way, but with Cam and Des both getting hurt, they both took a person out of that same exact position (on the floor). Our depth in the post just continues to get thinner and thinner, but it's all about rallying around them and playing for them. We’ll talk about that quite a bit as we go. When you think you can't give more, you give more for Des because she would give more for you. You just have to handle your emotions and you have to understand that we don't know why things happen, but we do believe that God has a plan. We’ve just got to continue to trust the process of this season and go out and do what we always do — just try to go 1-0 on Saturday.”
On Saturday, the Racers will head to Nashville to take on Belmont for sole possession of first place in the Missouri Valley Conference. Thomas was the primary replacement on the interior when Katelyn Young or Ava Learn needed a break. As we saw Sunday against Evansville, with Thomas out, Turner has turned to senior guard Trinity White to fill that 4-spot in the rotation. With one day’s worth of preparation last week, White filled in admirably for Thomas. Now having a few more days this week to get acclimated, Turner likes what she’s seen from White.
”She is getting more comfortable, for sure,” Turner said. “Basically, we'll just be a four-guard lineup when she's on the floor. When Kate or Ava need a break, and Trinity is in, we'll just just be more of a four-guard lineup. We’re fortunate that Trinity is strong and she's real physical, so she can guard the post if we need her to. The different matchups are going to bring on different challenges for her, but I expect her to step up and handle those. It'll give us an opportunity to have some different looks on the floor offensively and defensively with four guards.”
The Racers will take on Belmont Saturday afternoon at 4:00pm at the Curb Event Center in Nashville.
This breaks my Racer Loving Heart. She has all my prayers.