Prior to the beginning of her collegiate career at Brigham Young University, Haley Hall never had to deal with much beyond a minor injury.
Overcoming three season-ending knee injuries in three years, Hall, a former Clearfield High School star, has become a textbook example of what it means to persevere, and in the process become an uplifting story for the BYU women's basketball team.
"I'm just really happy and thankful to have made it through an entire season healthy," Hall said. "I had my ups and downs this season, but considering the circumstances I'm happy with the season that I've had. I knew coming into this season that I would be a different player. I've really had to adjust to playing the 2 position and having a different mindset than I'm used to. But I feel like I've contributed a lot to my team and overall had a successful year."
After a stellar four-year career with the Falcons, including a Region 1 co-championship and the Standard-Examiner's All-Area Most Valuable Player award as a senior, Hall signed with the Cougars in 2006.
With Hall at the helm, the Cougars seemed poised for greatness, with BYU pulling off a stunning road upset of then-No. 5 Stanford in just the second game of her career. She finished the game with 15 points, scoring the game-winning 3-pointer in the final seconds of her teams' 55-52 victory.
Less than a month later, the bottom fell out.
During a non-league game against New Mexico State, Hall's freshman year came to an end with a torn anterior cruciate ligament. After a year-long recovery, Hall injured her knee again just a week prior to the season. Again going through a lengthy recover process, Hall appeared ready to take to the court a season ago. Then, with just four minutes remaining in the first game of the season, the unthinkable happened, Hall injured her other knee.
"The hardest part about this year was overcoming the mental battle of three ACL's in a row," Hall said. "It is a difficult thing to do to trust your body again. I don't think that's something anyone can really understand until they've been there. On top of that, I hadn't played basketball in three years. So I really had to be reintroduced to the speed and intensity of a basketball game."
Heading into today's 2:30 p.m. Mountain West Conference semifinal matchup with San Diego State in Las Vegas, the No. 2 seed Cougars boast a 20-8 overall record.
"This has been such a fun season and we don't want it to be over quite yet, so hopefully we can get a couple wins this weekend," Hall said. "I feel like this team has had a lot of success this year. It's disappointing to feel like we had a shot to win the conference title and didn't, but finishing in the top two in the Mountain West was a good accomplishment."
Hall has averaged 8.8 points and a team-best 4.2 assists, along with 32.5 minutes of court time per game. Her best game statistically came on Jan. 10 at arch-rival Utah. She finished with 24 points on 9-of-13 shooting, draining six 3-pointers and snagging nine rebounds.
"We were very cautious at the beginning because she'd come back the last three years only to get hurt early on in the season," Cougars' coach Jeff Judkins said. "As the season progressed she was starting to feel more comfortable on the court and was becoming more aggressive and so that made me not be so nervous about her playing."
Over the second half of the season, and especially down the stretch of the MWC season, Hall says she started to hit her comfort zone.
Despite being in her fourth year with BYU, Hall will either have one or two more years to continue her college career due to redshirting and medical hardship.
* LOUISANA TECH 82, UTAH STATE 65: At Reno, Nev., despite holding WAC player of the year Shanavia Dowdell to two points, seventh-seeded Utah State could not overcome sharp Lady Techster shooting, falling 82-65 in the Western Athletic Conference Tournament quarterfinals Wednesday.
Utah State ends its fifth season in the WAC with a 13-17 record.
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