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| Jenna Thorp has a torn left ACL and meniscus that will keep her out for an indefinite period of time. (Beck Diefenbach – bdiefenbach@daily-chronicle.com) |
Jenna Thorp is used to having her knee pop out of place, so when it happened in a scrimmage with her Northern Illinois teammates, it shouldn’t have been that big of a deal.
“I was just playing in a scrimmage with the team and I thought it was just a normal pop-out, so I didn’t really think too much of it,” said Thorp, an incoming freshman at NIU. “Then I had an MRI done and I found out I tore an ACL and meniscus. So that’s not the good news I was hoping for.”
Thorp’s torn left ACL and meniscus will keep her out for an indefinite period of time. The Hinckley-Big Rock graduate and two-time Daily Chronicle Girls Basketball Player of the Year will visit a doctor on Wednesday and will then schedule surgery on the knee.
The freshman forward/guard didn’t rule out coming back to the court this season and said there is no timetable set for her return.
“It depends on the recovery process,” Thorp said. “We’ll just see how I build up my knee now and hopefully we’ll schedule surgery sometime soon.”
Thorp averaged 15.0 points per game as a senior with H-BR, along with shooting 53.0 percent from the field (195 of 368), making 70.6 percent (132 of 187) of her free throws and averaging 8.3 rebounds, 3.4 steals and 2.3 assists per game while committing just 40 turnovers in 35 games. She finished eighth in the voting for Ms. Basketball 2010.
“We really feel for Jenna,” NIU coach Kathi Bennett said in a news release. “We also know that as devastating as this is, Jenna is an incredibly resilient young woman. She will turn this into a positive because of who she is.”
Thorp said she was running at the time when the tears happened.
“I caught the ball and [the knee] twisted and that’s when I felt it pop out. I felt it pop, but for me, because I have loose knees as it is, that’s what I was born with, it feels the same to me, but really it just popped.
“I was kind of down [Wednesday]. But I talked with some people, my family, this morning, and the team is here to support me.”
