BY NATE KOTISSO | THE MONITOR
MISSION — During the third quarter of a summer basketball tournament game in June, Renee Flores dove for a loose ball. She expected to land on top of the ball or a player but instead banged her right knee on the hardwood.
Flores experienced pain in her knee, but it ultimately didn’t hamper her too much.
“At first, we didn’t realize what it was,” Flores said. “I thought I bruised the knee internally, and so that’s why I thought it was sore. I was able to walk up the stairs and jog a little bit with almost no problem.”
After her injury, Flores decided to stay away from the court — a simple decision since her travel team’s games were over for the summer. She went to an open gym with some of her teammates from her travel team in early August. On one possession of their friendly game, Flores drove in for a layup.
“When I got the ball and began to drive, a girl pushed me to the floor, and the pain in my knee came back,” Flores said. “This time, I couldn’t get up on my own, and I couldn’t jog around at all. Now I had to see a doctor.”
Flores’ doctor diagnosed her with a torn meniscus and a sprained posterior cruciate ligament in her right knee, which required surgery.
Though the setback turned out to be more severe than Flores initially anticipated, she made a quick return and is playing some of the best basketball of her career for a resurgent Palmview team.
“I was worried that I was going to be so behind with the (Palmview) girls,” the junior guard said. “I’m not going to know any plays. I’m going to be out of shape. I’m not going to be as quick as I was before. I didn’t think I’d be prepared for the season.”
“I was a little devastated,” La Joya Palmview coach Anisa Reyna said. “No coach wants to see any of their players get hurt, much less having a player hear the words ‘surgery’ and ‘hospital’ in the same sentence.
“The staff and I were asking ourselves, ‘How are we going to get her back healthy and in shape as soon as we could? Is her knee going to hold up?’ We had to think about what we had to do for her as a staff and a team.”
With consistent rehab, the doctor told Flores she would be able to return to the court in six weeks.
“I actually came back in three weeks,” Flores said. “I went to rehab every single day in the morning and in the afternoon.”
Despite her speedy recovery, Flores missed Palmview’s first nine games of the season. The Lobos began the year 4-5.
“This was another challenge that we had to overcome. We love challenges,” Reyna said. “We needed to get everyone else on the team better before she comes back or, in the event, she doesn’t come back. The pressure was on us as a staff.”
Reyna gave Flores the all-clear to return to action for Palmview’s game against Weslaco East on Nov. 17.
“I was cautious in that game. All I wanted to do was pass the ball around,” Flores said. “But then I started getting comfortable and found my second wind since I was still out of shape.”
Flores scored 20 points on 6-of-9 shooting to lead the Lobos to a 50-24 win over the Wildcats.
“Her first shot was an air ball, so I was adamant about limiting minutes in addition to her telling me if she was hurt, she had to say something to me,” Reyna said. “I stressed that to her a couple of times, and she kept telling me, ‘Coach, I got this.’ I was happy that she was honest with me. I don’t want her to sacrifice herself at all. That’s not what we’re here for.”
Flores is averaging 14.9 points in the eight games since her return to the Lobos. Palmview’s play improved as well, with the team sporting a 6-2 record in those eight games.
Flores also added a new dimension to her game since her sophomore year. The junior is shooting 33 percent (10 of 30) from the 3-point line this season after combining to shoot 26.6 percent (71 of 266) from the perimeter during her first two seasons with Palmview.
Flores’ free-throw percentage is up to 72.9 percent (35 of 48) this year, compared to 66.2 percent (301 of 454) the previous two years.
“In those open gyms, I just shot nothing but free throws during the summer,” Flores said. “That’s all I could do. Free throws, free throws, free throws. I’d do that for about an hour or two around three times a week. It really helped me with my form and my arm strength.”
Now that the Lobos (10-7) are clicking days away from the start of District 30-6A competition, Flores has a holistic view on her experience.
“I learned that this was not the end of the world,” Flores said. “Everything was going to be OK. I had to accept the help I was receiving from my trainers, coaches, teammates and parents. It was going to take some time.”