By Link Johnson
The Scene Staff
The St. Louis Community College women’s basketball team has lost a key player due to injury.
Sophomore guard Daytona Ball, 21, tore two ligaments in her right knee on Dec. 15, when she landed awkwardly during a game against Southeastern Illinois College.
Ball underwent surgery and will be out the rest of the season. She insists the team will be fine.
“I’m not the only leader out there,” she said. “Everybody on the team is a leader. We have to look out for each other, and we all have to step up big time.”
The Lady Archers miss being on the court with Ball, their leading scorer, who averaged 20 points and 11 rebounds per game. They won three games and lost five in January.
Ball has been giving guidance from the sidelines.
“She’s a great leader as a player and as an assistant coach,” said women’s basketball coach Shelley Etheridge. “I would rather have her on the floor. (But) she has taken this role on, and they respect her. She does a nice job.”
Ball spent much of her childhood in Virginia but lived all over the country with her military family. She started playing basketball at 5, following in the footsteps of her grandmother.
Ball graduated from Brookhaven High School in Columbus, Ohio, before enrolling at Forest Park in the fall of 2011 and joining the women’s basketball team.
In December, Ball tore her anterior cruciate ligament, which joins the upper leg bone with the lower leg bone; and partially tore her medial collateral ligament, which also is critical to knee stability.
Everyone on the team felt her pain.
“We’re like a family,” said team manager Daniece Riney, 18, a radiology major and Ball’s roommate. “(Her injury) grew the team together. We all had to step up.”
Ball is an education major who plans to be a high school teacher.
She calls it “humbling” to be treated with such great respect by her teammates during her stint as assistant coach. The experience even has made her consider coaching as a career.
“As a player, you really don’t understand what the coaches are talking about until you see it,” she said.
It’s unclear whether Ball will be back as a player next season.
Regardless, she is determined to focus on the positive when it comes to her teammates.
“They’re fighters,” she said. “They are some hard-working individuals, and they want to win. It’s just going to have to come with time. “(Establishing a new dynamic is) kinda hard, but they don’t give up.”