Connors Fights Through Season
by Matt Zimmerman, Long Beach Press-Telegram
January 19, 2005 Every game, every practice -so, basically, every day -it's the same ritual for Jayme Connors.
Arrive at the Pyramid early. Sit in the training room and get the left ankle taped.
On game days, provide key rebounding for the 49ers (9-4 overall, 5-1 Big West Conference) while grimacing a few times a game as the ankle rebels against her attempts to get up and down the floor. Sometimes, Connors has a few nervous moments, as when she took a charge from Cal State Fullerton center Amber Pruitt, who then landed on Connors' ankle.
"I sat there for a second ,and I held it. And I didn't want to come out, so I forgot about it, got up really quick and ran down the floor," Connors, a 6-foot-2 junior forward, said. "I know well enough if it gets so bad, not to play. But until it gets to that point, just keep playing, play through it."
Four years ago, Connors came to Long Beach State as a freshman from Las Vegas, and her troublesome left ankle has been a constant almost from the beginning. She first sprained her ankle as a freshman and missed four weeks of the season.
As a sophomore, Connors had surgery on it and redshirted the 2002-03 season before returning for last season, coach Mary Hegarty and her staff's first with the team. Connors injured the ankle against Idaho, but only sat out the rest of that game.
"My freshman year, we (started) 0-6, and I was like, 'Are you kidding me?" and looking at other teams that I could have gone to and looking at how well they're doing, and teams that we played that I could have gone, and they beat us," Connors said. "But then, coming into last year, and just feeling a whole different vibe with the team, with the coaches, you knew it was going to change."
Starting at power forward in the 49ers' three-guard offense, Connors has been a key to the team's success this season, including the five-game Big West winning streak they take into tonight's 7:30 p.m. game against UC Irvine at the Pyramid. Of course, it almost wouldn't be a normal season if Connors' ankle didn't give her trouble, and it happened in the first half against then-ranked Houston at the Pyramid.
Connors stayed in the game and hit the go-ahead basket in a 54-52 win, and though she has not been able to participate in practice as much, the constructional engineering major has started every game.
"Jayme's really a hard-nosed player, and she wants to be on the court no matter what," said 49ers assistant coach Denise Curry, a member of the Naismith basketball Hall of Fame who, with assistant coach Jason Flowers, works with the 49ers' post players. "For us, (her redshirt) was a blessing because we were lucky that we got Jayme for three years instead of two. I don't care who we're going against, she battles. She doesn't concede anything."
Since re-injuring the ankle, she has averaged nearly eight rebounds per game in Big West play and has pulled down 8.1 per game for the season, second to guard Aisha Hollans' 10.1, while scoring 8.6 points.
"I think that because you're underneath, you should get the rebound, (but) I think our team, in practice, they don't focus on, 'Post players, you need to get the rebound." Everybody needs to crash the boards," Connors said. "On defense, all five, on offense, four of us. It's kind of on everyone's shoulders to do their part crashing the boards. Whoever gets it, I'm just glad our team got it."
Connors is on pace to graduate in May 2006, but said she may hold off on her final classes to wait for LBSU to gain accreditation in her major. And she is aware that, while she will return for her final year of eligibility, 6-6 center senior center Petra Glaeser's departure may leave the 49ers thin in the middle next season.
But that's for later. For now, she'll enjoy finally figuring out just why she chose LBSU.
"(Coach Hegarty) asked me why I came here, and I was like, 'You know, I really don't understand, but something told me to come here," Connors said. "I think this (season) is why." |
