Warriors are 6-0 with her in lineup

CARLOS ORTIZ Senior guard Colleen Kelly has provided a steadying influence for Webster since returning from a knee injury last month. Kelly is averaging 16.7 points in six games. Colleen Kelly Brown-bound: Committed to play basketball next season in the Ivy League for Brown in Providence, R.I. The 95-average student is a prospective business/economics major. Winner: Arguably Monroe County's best all-around athlete, Kelly was on sectional champion soccer (goalie) and softball (center fielder) teams as a junior. She has two runner-up patches in basketball. Record-breaker? Kelly moved into No. 2 on Webster's career scoring list last game. Her 1,206 points over five seasons trail only Sue Mulroney's 1,329.

By Jeff DiVeronica
Democrat and Chronicle

(Friday, February 1, 2002) -- For the first nine games this season, Webster basketball coach Scott Morrison penciled Colleen Kelly's name in the scorebook even though he knew she wouldn't be able to play.

The versatile senior guard was recovering from a torn anterior cruciate ligament in her right knee suffered last June, but Morrison still put her name down.

"Hope, I guess," he says.

It might have been just out of habit, too, because for five seasons Kelly's name has been in that book and almost all of the time good things have happened for the Warriors.

Kelly is back on the court now -- not just in the scorebook -- and her presence has transformed an offensively challenged, inexperienced team into a Class AA Tournament contender.

Without Kelly, Webster was 4-5, but since her Jan. 8 return the Warriors are 6-0. They face Fairport in a Monroe County Division I showdown at 2 p.m. Sunday. The game is part of the Kearney Classic at Blue Cross Arena at the Community War Memorial. The rival Red Raiders (6-0 league, 14-3 overall) are No. 1 in the Democrat and Chronicle's large-schools poll.

"We're capable of beating anyone," says Kelly, a two-time All-Greater Rochester pick who has led Webster to two runner-up finishes in the Section V Tournament. "It's just a matter of us bringing our best game."

With Kelly, they are plenty capable. Her averages -- 16.7 points, 8.2 rebounds, 4.1 assists and 3.5 steals -- are similar to last year. She is a perimeter threat, another ball-handler and rebounder and adds loads of confidence to a team that returned only one other starter, senior center Keaghan Reed.

"It was really tough (without Kelly) trying to get everyone balanced," says Reed (11.3 ppg, 9.1 rpg), who Morrison says played well bearing the "brunt" of defensive attention in Kelly's abs ence.

Nearly 61/2 months after July 19 surgery, Kelly isn't 100 percent, but flashes of her old self are more common.

"I'm not confident enough to go back and forth laterally as fast as I used to. Whether it's there or not, I'm just not confident," says Kelly, whose game is more reliant on smarts than speed.

"It gets frustrating, either not jumping off both legs or getting tired and not being able to take a long shot (because it will come up short)."

When her jump shot wasn't falling Jan. 18 in the first half against Irondequoit, Kelly erupted for 25 of her career-high 34 points in the second half by penetrating.

"She mixed it up," says Brockport coach Kathy Boughton, who scouted that game, then watched Kelly post 14 points and 13 rebounds in Tuesday's 55-40 loss at Webster. "Some players have ability, but she has the sense to know how to use it."

The knee injury happened during an AAU practice. Kelly didn't hear the "pop" common in ACL tears and walked away from it. But over the next few weeks, the pain never subsided. An MRI revealed the tear.

"I was shocked," she says.

Kelly targeted a January return. She admits that when Fairport's Caitlin Howe suffered her second ACL tear in nine months on Dec. 11, it scared her. "My heart sank," Kelly says.

But then she talked with Dr. Michael Maloney, who operated on both players, and he said Howe's second tear was "a fluke."

"He said he's done more than 200 surgeries and less than five people have re-torn it," Kelly says.

Her first game back was an emotional rollercoaster.

"I was extremely nervous. I didn't talk to anyone before the game," she says.

Within the first two minutes, Kelly had eight points, including two 3-pointers. She was back. Morrison, however, still says his heart is in his throat when Kelly gets knocked down or goes for a loose ball.

"I say, 'Geez, stay outside and shoot the '3' ' but that's just Colleen," he says. "She'll do whatever it takes for us to win."