Sara Halasz’s season is over before it even started.
Halasz, a junior guard for the Lobo women’s basketball team, tore her right ACL last Friday in a team scrimmage at the Lobo Howl, putting her out for the entire season.
She was chosen as a preseason All Mountain West Conference selection, and the injury is the same one she suffered last year that also benched her.
“I am not going to let that bring me down,” Halasz said. “I am pretty set to come back and play. I want to play and I want to help the program and the team.”
Head coach Yvonne Sanchez is entering her first season at UNM and said that the loss is tough on the team, but she expects them to bounce back.
“It’s a blow to the team, but at the same time this team has a ton of heart and I am really impressed with them,” she said. “Sarah will be able to help us from the sidelines.”
Halasz suffered the same injury during last year’s preseason and said this just gives her incentive to work harder for next year’s season.
“It’s a bummer to actually get that news, but I am going to take it as a learning lesson like I did last year, and come back stronger,” she said. “I am still going to stay motivated and I still want to play.”
She suffered the injury with fewer than two minutes left to play in the scrimmage on a drive to the basket.
“It was just a normal drive like any other drive I have done in my career,” she said. “The last thing in my mind was to think my ACL would go, and I felt the pop and the pain with everything.”
In her freshman year she played 36 games for the Lobos and was fourth on the team in scoring with 5.6 points per game. Her sophomore season she started 30 of 32 games and was second on the team in both scoring and rebounding.
After most of last year’s freshmen left with the departure of former head coach Don Flanagan, Halasz was expected to pick up a lot of the slack.
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Sanchez said no one player in particular is going to fill that spot on the team, but instead they will all have to work together like they did last year.
“It will be by committee again,” she said. “Everybody is just stepping up and playing their role and playing well.”
Senior Porche Torrance said it’s up to her to make up for the loss.
“I know I need to step it up as a post player and guard now that Sara is hurt,” she said.
Halasz has two years of eligibility left and was granted a medical redshirt last year, which gave her a fifth year of eligibility.
Because she will miss this entire season she may be able to petition for a sixth year of eligibility.
“I have next year, and Coach Sanchez and I are discussing a possible sixth year, but I haven’t thought that far yet,” she said. “I just want to see how surgery goes and coming back next year and how playing goes.”
