Becca Jones, The Comeback Kid

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Becca Jones before her injury was on top of the world. One day would change her life in a way she didn’t expect. Courtesy of Dale Jones.

Leesville High School’s very own Becca Jones, sophomore, is planning her comeback.

As a freshman, Jones had been talking to six schools, all with great softball programs. Everyone close to Jones knew she was going nowhere but up with her softball career.

Her team outside of school, the New Jersey Intensity National Team, was playing a game over 2015’s Fourth of July weekend. “It was the last inning of the game, last out, I hit the ball, and I was running to first, and instead of taking an extra step, I lunged to the bag. When I hit the bag, my knee went outwards. I tore my ACL completely, tore two parts of my Meniscus, and sprained my LCL” said Jones.

It became a six and a half month recovery, a major setback considering she was going to get recruited at the end of the summer. Her injury caused colleges to become quiet, hurting Jones emotionally. “I had a plan for everything, but then, then this injury happened.”

Luckily for Becca, her team had two doctors that were traveling with them. The doctors were able to keep the swelling down by limited her movement, relieving some pain. While the tournament continued, doctors were able to push up her surgery date– Orthopedic surgeons cannot perform if there is a lot of swelling. On July 16, Becca had surgery.

Afterwards, her muscle began to shrink in her left leg. Intense physical therapy became a must if Becca was going to return to the field.

Becca lost so much muscle she couldn’t flex her quad. Because of this, her physical therapist’s first step in her recovery was to gain some muscle back. Jones’s exercise in the beginning was just flexing the quad muscle. After three months, muscle began to re-form, giving Becca some hope. At the sixth month mark, her quad showed tremendous improvement, and three weeks ago she got cleared.

Since being cleared, Becca is participating in rehab workouts at D1 with Kenny. He knows what her body can handle while giving a killer workout to help gain back the rest of the muscle she lost. One of Becca’s fears is that colleges will think she is accident prone, so along with strength workouts they are also working on injury prevention.

Back on the field, playing Leesville softball, Jones hopes to have a great season. Unfortunately, on one of the last days of tryouts she strained her PCL…“which is common when you don’t have as much muscle mass in one leg, while the other one is big. I went too far than I should have.”

“I did a tournament, a week after I got cleared, and even though I wasn’t doing that much, like working out, I still had all my basic skills. In my opinion, I think (my skills) improved from this injury. [Unlike when I played year round] my body got a chance to rest and heal. 6 months ago I was straight working out, there was no time for my body to heal,” said Jones.

“I am working so hard for a come back. What I have been telling schools is my goal is to be better than I was last year, even though with this injury has caused me to be out for six months. My goal for high school is, as a pitcher, to stay in the strike zone, let my defense work trying to get the ball on the ground, so we can have an easy out at one. In my travel ball my goal is to just stand out on the field, be vocal and a leader to everyone on my team and show what I am made of,” said Jones.

This special sophomore has gone through it all as an injured athlete, the therapy and the mental toll it takes. Her mental mindset of determination and confidence is what will help her with her comeback. Jones’s injury has allowed her to focus on her throwing skills and accuracy making her a bigger threat on the field than she was before as a pitcher for Leesville Road High School.

Everyone get ready to experience firsthand this softball season Becca Jones’s comeback.

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