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For DePaul's Rogowski, injury's pain run deep

The bullet was almost dodged.

Megan Rogowski was oh, so close.

"I almost made it out…," Rogowski said with a sigh.

Rogowski grew up playing basketball in the northwest suburbs. Her dad Casey taught her the game when she was a little girl.

She's played in hundreds of games, and gone to even more practices. She was coming to the end of a long ride, from youth basketball through high school and AAU and college, and had managed to stay relatively healthy along the way.

Then, she heard the dreaded pop.

Rogowski, a 3-point sharpshooter from Hersey who was among DePaul's leading scorers (12.9 ppg) this season, blew out her right knee last week at Villanova while chasing down a long pass.

Now a senior, Rogowski was halfway through her final season at DePaul.

"I thought I was going to avoid this," said Rogowski, who tore the anterior cruciate ligament and the meniscus in her right knee.

In the process, she became the latest to earn a family distinction that no one in the family is happy about.

"Just about everyone in my family has done this. Four out of six of us have had (major knee injuries)," said Rogowski, who had hit a team-leading 39 three-pointers in 14 games. "I've always hated thinking about ACL injuries. I wouldn't even talk about it because I've heard that part of (the injury) is genetic.

"But I thought I was going to be OK. I had been blessed with a pretty healthy basketball career. Until now."

Rogowski's dad, who played college ball at Northeastern Illinois, tore up his left knee when he was a senior in high school. Older sister Kelly, who played at Loras College, injured her right knee. Twice.

Even younger sister Claire, now a freshman at Hersey, has been hit by the knee gremlin. She tore the ACL in her right knee in seventh grade.

"When it first happened, my mom and dad weren't thinking ACL because (Claire) was so young," Rogowski said. "Some of the doctors weren't sure they wanted to do surgery because they were worried about stunting her growth. But she ended up getting surgery and now she's fine.

Only younger brother Scott, a seventh-grade player, and mom Judy have avoided knee injuries. Rogowski is keeping her fingers crossed for them. She has quickly discovered how much of a downer a knee injury is. Crutches are a pain. So is the pain itself.

Then there's the empty feeling, the idea of being done with basketball before truly being ready to be done.

"There was a point where I was sitting by myself in the training room at Villanova waiting for the doctors and our trainer to come back in and I just broke down. I knew it was bad," said Rogowski, who will have surgery later this month. "And now it's sinking in even more.

"I think about playing at one of the highest levels and how I'm not really going to be able to do that again. That's been taken from me."

And right at full stride. Rogowski, who scored a school-record 2,365 points at Hersey, had been playing the best basketball of her career over the last two years.

"It's just a sinking, devastating feeling because these athletes put so much work into this," DePaul coach Doug Bruno said. "Megan has been so special for us, and it's not just the way she can hit shots or spread the floor for you. No one is going to be another Megan Rogowski for us."

Last season, Rogowski topped the Big East in made 3-pointers per game (3.26) and averaged 15.7 points in leading DePaul to a Big East championship and the Sweet 16. This season, she played through tendinitis in her legs to guide the Blue Demons to a Top 25 national ranking.

"I was doing OK this season, but I actually wasn't feeling my best even before this knee injury, so I was thinking that I wasn't sure if I would want to continue playing (overseas or in the WNBA) after I was done (at DePaul)," Rogowski said.

"But now that this has happened, I'm not sure if I want to go out like this either."

pbabcock@dailyherald.com

Follow Patricia on Twitter @babcockmcgraw

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