Gonzaga loses Kane for season
By Leila Wai
Advertiser Staff Writer
It was somber when there should have been joyful celebration in the visitors' locker room Thursday at San Francisco's War Memorial Gym.
The Gonzaga women's basketball team had won its third consecutive game, a 72-61 overtime win against San Francisco.
"You try to be happy because we won a big road game, but it was bittersweet," Gonzaga coach Kelly Graves said. "No one was cheering, screaming or laughing, because we all felt for Rachel."
Freshman point guard Rachel Kane, the Advertiser's 2003 State Player of the Year, severely injured her right knee in overtime and was lost for the season.
"There wasn't a dry eye in the locker room, and that says a lot about her," Graves said. "The teammates love her, and we're going to miss her."
Kane, a 2003 graduate of Punahou from Kane'ohe, underwent X-rays Monday, and discovered that the anterior cruciate ligament in her right knee was torn.
She had a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) done yesterday, to determine if her medial collateral ligament was also torn, but her doctor's first diagnosis was that she didn't tear her MCL, according to Graves.
An MRI is a procedure that uses magnetic fields to create a picture of the body's interior. Kane said the tests should return either today or tomorrow.
"I'm fine, hoping for a good surgery and a quick recovery," she said. "It's kinda hard, just watching. We had a game on Saturday, and it was really hard. Inside I was kinda cringing because I wanted to be out there helping my team."
The Bulldogs lost to Saint Mary's, 60-48.
Kane tore her ACL in the same knee her freshman year at Punahou. She said it took six months to recover, but "we took it slow because we were being extra cautious."
She said she plans to have surgery in three weeks once the swelling in her knee goes down.
Kane averaged 5.9 points and 4.1 rebounds per game. She also had 57 assists and 25 steals in 27.8 minutes per game.
Graves said that "if I had to pick a team MVP up until this point in the season, she would have been it."
Reach Leila Wai at lwai@honoluluadvertiser.com or 535-2457.
