Junior captain Erin Thiets has been a leader on the girls basketball team ever since she joined in her eighth grade year. During her sophomore year. Fortunately, she had a horrible injury on the court during a scrimmage. She has made an outstanding recovery throughout the past year.

Thiets and senior Paige Becker are the captains for the girls basketball team this season. Even though Thiets is only a junior, she is doing the best she can after tearing her ACL last season. She many goals for the season and the team has improved with their point guard back on the court.

It has been almost a year since Thiets’ surgery and she has been through a lot more than people can imagine. Erin has worked so hard to get back to where she was last season before her injury. She has worked hard throughout her off-season.

“I tore my ACL on Nov. 24 last year, and then I had my surgery on Dec. 27 of 2012, so it has been almost a year since the surgery and over a year and a month since I tore it. It affected my off-season a lot because I play golf and it made it a lot harder for me to get a full swing. I was still in recovery in the spring and summer so I wasn’t up to my full potential. We have had a couple of game these last few weeks and I can definitely tell I am not up to speed because it takes a lot of game situations to get back to a 100 percent,” said Thiets.

After a season of recovering, she got the honor of being season 2013-2014 captain. She is a great influence to the younger girls on the team. The younger girls strive to be as motivated as Thiets has been throughout her recovery.

“She is always pushing us to do our best in our game, she knows that we always have more in us. She was a huge leader to me last season because when she was injured, I had to take her spot as the point guard. She had to explain quite a few things to me, so it meant a lot to me,” said sophomore Rilee Day.

Thiets is known for her extra time spent on the team. She strives to be the best she can on and off the court.

“She shows leadership by always being positive and encouraging people when they are down. Even when we are on a slump in a game, she will give you encouragement and constructive criticism to help you be better on the next play. She also shows it by showing up to practice early and doing the little things like staying after practice to work on things that she needs to improve on. She is always leading the warm-ups and she does her best to do them correctly. She does the extra stuff, which is a huge part,” said senior Maggie Orgen.

After not playing all season, Thiets has done a phenomenal job since this season has started. Stillwater played St. Francis on Dec. 13th. Thiets lead all scorers with 19 points in the game.