I
THE BLUE BANNER
I
GWYN
continued from page 9
““Our point guard tears her ACL in the first
game and our center tears her shoulder up.
Then our leading scorer Shonese Jones goes
down with her ACL, and I was just thrown
in. I had to play, I had no choice. I still
wasn’t playing well, I was moving slow and
my left knee had so much pain, but I had to
play,” said Gwyn.
In February, during the lighter end of
the season, Gwyn tore her right ACL while
playing at Coastal Carolina University.
“We were coming back, we were
only down by like five in the second half and
I went up for a rebound and my teammate
Gentry comes and knocks me over. I’m
trying to get the rebound and I end up just
landing on my right leg,” said Gwyn.
Gwyn said as soon as she felt the
familiar pains from her last injury she knew
exactly what was going to happen.
“After surgery, I went home and I was
just like, T’m not playing basketball,”’ Gwyn
said. “Tearing both of your ACL’s in one year
is traumatizing. 1 couldn’t believe that I had
to go through this again, have surgery again
and be out six to eight months. I kept telling
myself, ‘this cannot be happening,”’ said
Gwyn.
Though Gwyn’s coach wanted her
back on the team as soon as possible, Gwyn
and her parents both decided that it was time
to step away from basketball for at least a
couple of months.
“People were just like, ‘Brittany, I
don’t know, you keep getting injured. You
haven’t had a season since you’ve been in
college, you probably need to hang up your
jersey.’ That’s when I just had to separate
myself from all the negativity, and I was just
like telling myself that I still have my junior
and senior year to bounce back and be a good
teammate.” Gwyn said. “From February to
preseason in August I was just grinding at the
gym strengthening my lower body and core
and hitting rehab all the time. And now I just
feel like a totally different person.”
Gwyn is the leading scorer for
the team this season, and has been named
College Sports Madness Player of the Week.
During the Bulldogs’ first home game
against Furman, Gwyn scored a total of 19
points. Gwyn also scored 17 points during
Saturday’s home game against Eastern
Kentucky, both times leading the Bulldogs to
a victory.
“Being around that positive
environment of my teammates really helped
me come back to where I am now. My
teammates are honestly what helped me get
past that hump of being injured. Without
them it probably would have been ten times
harder.” Gwyn said.
According to Gwyn, seeing how hard
her team worked on the court, in the weight
room and classroom made her want to work
twice as hard to comeback.
“You can see the fire in everyone’s
eyes, we all want to get better and be
successful. We just have each other’s backs.
We all have strengths and weaknesses, but
at the end of the day we all want to get w’s,”
said Gwyn.
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