The trajectory of Grace Kuch’s senior season changed with one solitary jump.
On the first jump of warm-ups ahead of a big volleyball match at Harrisburg in mid-October, the Aberdeen Central senior felt a pop in her knee, and knew almost immediately what had happened. Every athlete’s worst fear, summed up in a 3-letter acronym – a torn ACL.
“The first thing I said to (Central volleyball coach Jackie Bindenagel), I looked at her and I said, ‘This is not how it’s supposed to end,’” Kuch said.
Kuch tried every argument she could think of to convince her doctors, parents and coaches to let her postpone surgery and at least finish out the season.
But eventually reason won out, and the operating room was booked. The end had, inevitably, arrived.
The thing about that surgery, however, was that it didn’t just signal the end of her volleyball career. It wiped out her senior season of basketball, as well.
But Kuch wasn’t about to walk away quietly.
“I’ve been playing with this senior group of girls since I was in, literally, second grade,” Kuch said. “So just finishing out my whole career, just being on their side and being part of the team was really important to me.”
So when Kuch met with Central girls’ basketball coach Mikayla Arechigo, it wasn’t really even a discussion.
“I think she knows me well enough that she knew I wanted to be a part of the team,” Kuch said. “It wasn’t really a discussion of if I was going to be here or not, just more what my role was going to be on the team.”
Currently, that role has more to do with bringing an aura of positivity to the floor.
“It’s been great to have her at practices,” Arechigo said. “The girls like seeing her. I know I enjoy seeing her. … Grace has always been a positive member of our team. And thus far she has continued to do that.”
It hasn’t always been easy, though. Kuch is in physical therapy three times a week, and in physical discomfort more than that.
“I push myself as hard as I can go every time,” Kuch said. “I have broke down a couple times in PT, because it is really tough, and it’s a brand new feeling that I’ve never felt before.”
That push has a bit of urgency attached to it for Kuch. While the injury robbed her of a state volleyball tournament experience and her entire senior season of basketball, she is determined not to let it take her final track season, as well.
“Right now, that’s our goal,” she said. “Maybe by mid-April, I could get maybe 10 meets in. Hopefully that’s enough for a state qualifying mark. It’s hard. It’s turning a 9-month recovery into a 4-and-a-half-month recovery. I have faith in myself that I can do it, but it’s all going to come down to how I feel.“
For the time being, however, Kuch is just trying to lend as much of a voice as she can to her teammates on the court.
“Right now, just being their biggest cheerleader,” Kuch said. “We have a lot of younger girls, especially in the post area. Just helping them out and reminding them that it’s supposed to be fun.”
