Jade Brown practiced with the Terrapin volleyball team yesterday for the first time in the last two weeks.
Brown did not work with the team on rotation sets and her hitting wasn’t as strong as it had been before her knee injury two weeks ago in a match against Florida International. But the sight was enough to cause one of her teammates to scream “Jade Brown’s back!” while watching the star junior spike the ball over the net.
Yesterday, Brown had her knee reevaluated. The prognosis was a torn MCL, but more importantly, the doctors cleared her to play this weekend in a homestand against Virginia Tech and Virginia.
After a disappointing past weekend involving three-game losses to both Florida State and Miami, the Terps are excited to see their talented teammate back in action.
“She’s just a key player out there,” senior captain Teryn Papp said. “As a setter, I look to her as a go-to hitter.”
The weekend without Brown, who leads the team in both kills and digs, exposed a number of the Terps’ flaws. The team struggled with consistency and playmaking on both offense and defense.
Brown’s absence left the team shaky on its rotations and without the “go-to hitter” for setters Papp, Tedi Doucet and Hayley Hanson to look to for key kills. However, Terp coach Janice Kruger believes the team was tested and has improved because of last weekend.
“I think we recognize that we have to perform as individuals,” Kruger said. “But more importantly, we know we must play as a team.
“We also might have become more aware of how much we rely on Jade.”
In Brown’s absence, the team used backup senior Tina Aramburu extensively during last weekend’s matches, and Kruger spent the week preparing freshman Ashley Hogan to play crucial minutes despite not seeing any playing time thus far. The additional playing time for the reserves will provide more experience at the outside hitter position, which the Terps were lacking earlier in the year.
“I think that a lot of people stepped up [in Brown’s absence],” Papp said. “It definitely helped depth.”
Brown has yet to work on her lateral movement but has confidence in her return. She believes she will be able to go back to playing every serve, but Kruger would prefer to utilize her other players and rotate Brown out occasionally.
It was Brown’s competitive nature that allowed her to initially play while injured against No. 3-ranked UCLA. It is her relentless optimism that keeps thoughts of re-injuring the knee out of her mind. So as her teammates excitedly watched her return to practice, Brown felt the same excitement.
“It’s like you work so hard only to be unexpectedly taken out by injury,” Brown said. “It’s good to be back.”
Contact reporter Adi Joseph at ajosephdbk@gmail.com.
