With dislocated finger, Haven shows she's Ford tough
WBB: After hurting her shooting hand, the sophomore helped the Racers win a title
Midway through the third quarter of the Missouri Valley Conference championship game on Sunday, Murray State sophomore guard Haven Ford left with a dislocated finger. Here’s a look at what happened.
Here’s Ford’s first-hand account of her injury that isn’t for the faint of heart.
“They were driving, and I gave a stunt trying to knock the ball out of the girl’s hands,” Ford said. “I swung my hand, I guess too hard. I hit the ball, and as I followed through, I came down and hit the girl’s knee. In the moment, I thought I just jammed it. It just felt like a jam. I was like, ‘OK, let me just brush it off and move a little bit.’ Then we got the rebound, and by the time the play kind of got over, I looked down, and I saw the bone sticking out of my skin.”
I’m sorry, what?!? Pardon me while I take a seat for the rest of this story. Haven, please go on.
“I've never seen my finger look like that, so I immediately freak out. My finger is sideways. Ava (Learn) throws me the ball, and I’ve got blood on my hand — it’s sideways. I'm just, ‘OK, let me get it to half-court.’ Then I passed it, and I'm like, ‘Ref, I've got to get out.’ I just went straight back towards the locker room. (Athletic Trainer) Greg (Jocelyn) had come to me and put the towel over it. I didn't even make it all the way into the locker room. I was at the end of the little tunnel area and I just fell down to the ground, just bawling my eyes out. (Assistant Coach) Monica (Evans) is there. She's literally holding me. My dad is standing there, then my mom finally came down and they grabbed my hand. At that point, I said, ‘No, no, no, no.’ I know they were about to pop (the finger back into place). I was like, ‘Please don't, please don't, please don't.’ They were like, ‘We have to do this.’ Once I heard the pop, I was like, ‘OK, I'm glad it's back in some normal shape. Then it started bleeding more from where it was an open cut. That's when they took me back, and Dr. Blalock stitched me up.”
That was more than enough drama for any one championship game. But back out on the court, Murray State’s proverbial wheels were wobbling. Ford was in the locker room being tended to. Two minutes later, Racer guard Halli Poock had to go to the bench with her fourth foul, and the Racers’ 16-point halftime lead would be whittled down to just three points.
Knowing she’d be sitting on the bench for a while with her foul trouble, Poock kept hoping she’d see reinforcements coming from the locker room.
“I kept looking at the tunnel like, ‘Golly, when's Haven coming back?”
That was the question everybody in the Ford Center had. Nobody wanted to know the answer more than Ford herself.
“In my head, I didn't know if I was going to be able to come back,” Ford said. “I know I left in a crucial moment of the game, so I was more worried about not being able to play than if my finger was really broken. I was laying on the table, and they were like, ‘You're going to be OK. You're going to get to go back in.’ My dad is sitting there, like, ‘Haven, you're going to be OK. It's going to be OK.’ While I'm in the back, I'm laying down on the table, and obviously the TVs weren’t on, so I didn't know how the game was going. I was just basing it off of the crowd. Obviously, we had more people in there, so if it's a loud crowd and we can hear it in the back, we did something good.”
She may have heard some cheers, but Ford was getting antsy to get back out there.
“I said, ‘Am I good to play? My legs still work,’” Ford laughed. “I don't have to shoot it. They can hide me in the corner on offense. I just wanted to be out there for the team, because I know how our depth is, how crucial of a moment it was with Halli being out and I just wanted to be out there and just be a body. I was more worried about me getting back in the game than if it was broken.”
After Katelyn Young made one of two free throws and Trinity White scored on a layup to stretch the Murray State lead back out to 54-48 with 40 seconds left in the quarter, it was the moment of truth for Ford — and a moment she’ll remember forever.
As Belmont dribbled the ball down the floor, away from the Murray State bench, for their final possession of the quarter, Ford emerged from the tunnel. As she walked to the bench, all of Racer Nation in attendance stood in unison and gave her a thunderous ovation.
“When I walked out and just saw everyone stand up, the cheers and stuff like that, it was amazing just to feel the support that you have behind you,” Ford said.
“I knew she was coming back at some point, if they let her play,” Poock said. “She's a tough kid, and so I knew Haven was going to come back and not leave us hanging.
“I just think it goes to her character,” junior guard Briley Pena said. “She's just a Dawg. She's so strong and she wants to win. For us, she wasn't going to let her injury take her out of the game. She plays a vital role in our offense, and on our defense too. I feel like she just knew that she had to come back, and that just goes to show the kind of player and person that she is.”
With stitches in her dislocated finger, and her index and middle finger on her right hand taped up, Ford played nine minutes in the fourth quarter, going 3-for-4 from the free throw line and grabbing two rebounds. She finished the game with five points, 12 rebounds and 9 assists — and most importantly, a Missouri Valley Conference championship.
“We did something special,” Ford said. “We worked all year long for this goal, and for it to finally happen, words can't describe the feeling of it. We're all jumping and celebrating together. We're hugging Coach Turner and all the coaches. Just realizing how much work was put in, how many times we had to be resilient this season to even be in the position to get the #1 seed, to be regular season champs, to get a good draw. We loved our (Missouri Valley Tournament) draw when we got it. It was just a relief when the buzzer went off. We’re celebrating with the fans, and finally put the t-shirts on and the hats, and holding the sign up. All of it was something that we dreamed of and the reality of it was just great.”
Ford and the Racers will play Iowa on Saturday in the opening round of the NCAA Tournament in Norman, Oklahoma.