Maryland women’s basketball forward Stephanie Jones’ career didn’t get off to a clean start in her debut Sunday against UMass Lowell.
Shortly after subbing in for the first time, she was called for a foul when she tried to steal a pass but was late getting there and made contact with a River Hawk player. Immediately after, Jones had a resigned smile on her face as she received encouragement and high fives from her teammates.
“I was like, ‘Oh crap … I shouldn’t have did that,'” Jones said.
There’s an explanation for Jones’ miscalculation. Not only was Sunday’s game Jones’ first as a Terp, it was her first competition since tearing her ACL in January. After the initial misstep, Jones scored seven points and picked up a rebound. The team hopes she can continue to impress in Wednesday’s matchup with Maryland Eastern Shore.
“She acclimated really well and I thought she handled the situation really well,” guard Kristen Confroy said. “We’ll see what this year has in store for her.”
At one point, it seemed Jones might be forced to spend the 2016-17 year redshirting due to injury.
On Jan. 14, in Aberdeen High School’s game against Fallston, Jones rose to corral a rebound. When she came down, her left knee gave out. An MRI revealed a torn ACL, ending her senior season and casting doubt on how much of her freshman year she’d be able to play for the Terps.
“Coming back from an injury like that, there’s going to be challenges,” Jones said. “Being here at Maryland they really pushed me in the rehab and getting back and getting stronger.”
She underwent surgery on the first day of March, so the Havre de Grace native couldn’t participate in the Terps’ summer practices or play in their games during the summer trip to Italy.
“She first got here barely being able to walk properly,” Confroy said. “As an athlete, you feel her pain knowing that you have to sit out for so long and being away from the game.”
Jones was cleared to fully participate in practice Oct. 31. Still, she didn’t participate in either of the team’s exhibitions earlier this month. She was available for Sunday’s season-opener, though, and coach Brenda Frese entered her into the game with about six minutes to go in the second quarter.
After picking up the foul, which Jones called a product of “not being back to full speed,” she settled in and scored her first three college points with an and-one layup and foul shot a few minutes later.
Her sister, senior center Brionna Jones, had come into the game with Stephanie Jones and hustled down the court to join the celebration.
“It worked perfectly,” Frese said. “For the first rotation, if anybody’s going to make her comfortable getting out on the court it would be for the two of them together.”
Jones said she initially hadn’t noticed her sister was checking in from the scorer’s table at the same time as her.
“I turned around and saw Brionna and I was like, ‘Wow!,'” Jones said. “There was so much going on.”
The sisters have played together on travel teams growing up, but it had been a while since they took the court together.
The duo can present a basic problem for teammates: telling them apart.
“The number of times in a game I’ll see them out of my periphery and I’ll call, ‘Bri!’ and it’s actually Steph or vice versa,” Confroy said. “It’s crazy how much they look alike.”
But Confroy said she’s jealous that the sisters get to play together and is appreciative of the sisterly bond they bring to the team.
Plus, the Terps have known the younger Stephanie Jones for as long as they’ve known Brionna Jones. They saw her battle through injury to get the chance to play with her older sister for the one year they’ll be in school together.
“To start slowly getting [Stephanie Jones] in there and getting her comfortable and confident … it’s amazing to be able to see how quickly she’s been able to transition,” Frese said. “As she gets her lift back and gets stronger, she’s going to bring even more to the table.”
