October 13, 2015 at 5:11 p.m.
Senior conquers injury
Rays of Insight
Injuries are awful.
No matter what team we’re rooting for as sports fans, no one ever wants to see an athlete get hurt. That’s why the crowd politely claps when that same athlete makes his or her way to the bench.
But as much as we hate injuries, we love to see athletes rise above them. Who doesn’t enjoy a good comeback story?
I know they’ve been among the favorites covered by a series of sports editors at The Commercial Review.
Mike Snyder was always proud of the in-depth feature he wrote for one of our Thanksgiving issues about Jay County High School girls basketball player Cassie Golden’s comeback from tearing ligaments in her wrist.
One of the best pieces Chris Schanz has written in his time with The CR was about South Adams junior Morgan Alberson, who fractured a vertebrae during her freshman softball season and returned to play for the Starfires’ volleyball team just a few months later.
For me, Patriot gymnast Katie Snyder stands out. She suffered a broken arm when she fell from the uneven bars during her sophomore season. But she fought back to become a three-time state qualifier and set the JCHS record on the vault.
We saw another great comeback story play out Saturday.
Prior to her sophomore track season, Megan Wellman suffered a grade 3 hamstring tear at the pelvic bone. (A grade 3 tear is the most severe, and in some cases can be career-threatening.)
She was limited to three regular-season races during the 2014 cross country campaign, and was a shell of herself when she returned to compete for the Patriots at the sectional meet. Her ninth-place finish would have been good for many runners, but was well short of what she had proven capable of by placing second and third in her first two seasons.
Healthy again this year, Wellman has been on a mission. She set her sights not just on a return to the top of the sectional field, but on the sectional title, the school record and a state berth.
She took care of the first of those goals Saturday, blowing away the sectional field by more than 40 seconds in a career-best time of 19 minutes, 24.78 seconds. It was her third win of the year, and she was less than 10 seconds short of Katie Simmons’ school record — 19:15.23 — a mark she hopes to break at this weekend’s regional meet.
If Wellman is able to run a similar time at the semi-state at IPFW she will have a real opportunity to become the first Patriot to advance to the cross country state finals since Alyssa Johnson in 2002 and 2003. The final state-qualifying spot last season went to Michaela Lewis of South Bend Adams with her time of 19:23.92.
Like many athletes before her, Wellman is a testament to perseverance paying off. Faced with adversity, she fought back to win the sectional championship she had dreamed about since middle school.
Injuries are awful. But sometimes, they bring out the best.
No matter what team we’re rooting for as sports fans, no one ever wants to see an athlete get hurt. That’s why the crowd politely claps when that same athlete makes his or her way to the bench.
But as much as we hate injuries, we love to see athletes rise above them. Who doesn’t enjoy a good comeback story?
I know they’ve been among the favorites covered by a series of sports editors at The Commercial Review.
Mike Snyder was always proud of the in-depth feature he wrote for one of our Thanksgiving issues about Jay County High School girls basketball player Cassie Golden’s comeback from tearing ligaments in her wrist.
One of the best pieces Chris Schanz has written in his time with The CR was about South Adams junior Morgan Alberson, who fractured a vertebrae during her freshman softball season and returned to play for the Starfires’ volleyball team just a few months later.
For me, Patriot gymnast Katie Snyder stands out. She suffered a broken arm when she fell from the uneven bars during her sophomore season. But she fought back to become a three-time state qualifier and set the JCHS record on the vault.
We saw another great comeback story play out Saturday.
Prior to her sophomore track season, Megan Wellman suffered a grade 3 hamstring tear at the pelvic bone. (A grade 3 tear is the most severe, and in some cases can be career-threatening.)
She was limited to three regular-season races during the 2014 cross country campaign, and was a shell of herself when she returned to compete for the Patriots at the sectional meet. Her ninth-place finish would have been good for many runners, but was well short of what she had proven capable of by placing second and third in her first two seasons.
Healthy again this year, Wellman has been on a mission. She set her sights not just on a return to the top of the sectional field, but on the sectional title, the school record and a state berth.
She took care of the first of those goals Saturday, blowing away the sectional field by more than 40 seconds in a career-best time of 19 minutes, 24.78 seconds. It was her third win of the year, and she was less than 10 seconds short of Katie Simmons’ school record — 19:15.23 — a mark she hopes to break at this weekend’s regional meet.
If Wellman is able to run a similar time at the semi-state at IPFW she will have a real opportunity to become the first Patriot to advance to the cross country state finals since Alyssa Johnson in 2002 and 2003. The final state-qualifying spot last season went to Michaela Lewis of South Bend Adams with her time of 19:23.92.
Like many athletes before her, Wellman is a testament to perseverance paying off. Faced with adversity, she fought back to win the sectional championship she had dreamed about since middle school.
Injuries are awful. But sometimes, they bring out the best.
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