Blogs > Elm City to Eagleville

A blog on UConn women's basketball.

Monday, March 08, 2010

Feeling her pain

Notre Dame junior Devereaux Peters has acted like a kid at a candy store during the Big East tournament. Knee injuries during her freshman and sophomore years prevented her from playing a postseason game in her first two seasons at Notre Dame.

So when Notre Dame defeated Louisville in the second round of the Big East tournament and then topped St. John's in the quarterfinals, Peters was loving life.

"I am excited to play in the postseason for a change," Peters said. "I was nuts in the lockerroom and everybody was laughing at me and saying are you serious Dev, you've never played but if you think about, I have been out."

Since Peters has suffered two torn ACLs in the last two seasons and has a similar build to UConn incoming freshman Michala Johnson, who has also suffered two season-ending knee injuries, I asked Peters about how frustrating the second torn ACL was.

"The second one was actually easier after being out for so long and you do it again, at first it was rough but I was so used to being out so it was smoother the second time," Peters said. "It wasn't that bad and I am happy to be back."

I also asked her that if she could offer Michala Johnson any advice, what would it be?

"Just go out there and give 100 percent, don't think twice about anything," Peters said. "I think a lot of people when they heard ACL they think they have to think through stuff and they are nervous but I don't think about it. I am out here so I want to give it 100 percent."

Speaking of Johnson, her Montini Catholic of Lombard, Ill. team not only won a state title without the athletic 6-foot-3 forward but were inspired to win it in her honor

Johnson's future UConn teammate Stefanie Dolson has a huge game tonight when she leads her Minisink Valley of Slate Hill, N.Y. team against Kingston in the New York Section 9 Class AA championship game. The contest tips at 6 p.m.

Another UConn recruit has had to contend with a flood of emotions in the last week or two. Kaleena Mosqueda-Lewis, a 6-foot junior guard at Mater Dei in Santa Ana, Calif. was devastated - as was the entire Mater Dei community - with the recent death of the school's softball staff Bri Matthews. Mosqueda-Lewis's locker at school was right next to Matthews so obviously they built a strong bond. There was a nice piece on the OCVarsity.com site about how the Mater Dei squad honored their fallen classmate
when they played Woodbridge in the CIF-SS 2A title game.

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2 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

I was able to watch the last 10 minutes of the game live, on ESPN360 on my computer.

Viewing quality was about same as watching on a 17” tv. We sat close.
Used the full-screen option, which required clicking on an obscure unlabeled icon.
Required download and installation of a proprietary plug-in for the browser.

I don’t know if the whole game was shown live.
I don’t know if access was limited to those of us that use Comcast as an ISP.
I don’t know if they will broadcast all or part of tonight’s game (Monday).

11:52 AM 
Anonymous Anonymous said...

In your Nov. 15, 2009 article "Auriemma Pleased With Recruits," you provided some statistics on the 2010 recruits. Now that their high school basketball careers have ended, it would be interesting to see the final career and senior year stats for Hartley, Walker, Engeln, Dolson, and Johnson. Thanks, Jim.

1:45 PM 

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