LCA Basketball: With Hope Comes Prosperity
WINONA LAKE – A change of scenery can be just what the soul needs. And in this case, the knees.
Watching Hope Fancil play basketball, one can tell she has natural talent. She handles the ball well in the open court, seems comfortable navigating traffic in the lane, and can fill the bucket. Her game has ‘special’ written on it. Her right knee, well, she lugs it around the way a seasoned businessman handles his carry-on luggage. It’s there, you just have to make sure you don’t leave it behind.
Fancil, a junior, is easily the top player on her Lakeland Christian Academy girls basketball team. Her game stands out on a team that has just 13 players in the program. That balky knee, though, is what brought her to Winona Lake. Fancil grew up in the Warsaw school system, and even started her junior year as a Tiger. But after four procedures on her knee, including one this past year, Fancil found herself not only doubting her basketball life, but her place in the high school landscape.
Like many teenagers, Fancil has been faced with challenges and decisions that may not seem important at the time, but loom large in the grand scale. Some of those decisions, like having her ACL tear in a tournament in Georgia before her freshman year forced Fancil to decide on whether to keep going in basketball or not. An error in the reconstruction of her ACL caused her knee to give out again later her freshman year, to which a third surgery was needed to repair the second injury that happened January of 2015.
Deciding basketball still was something she wanted to do, Fancil rehabbed her way back into some JV games with Warsaw at the tail end of her sophomore year, even hitting a game-winning shot against NorthWood. But last summer, Fancil took another shot to her knee, forcing a fourth surgery.
With the scenarios becoming all too familiar, Fancil had to make some choices about what to do with her basketball career.
“I seriously had lost the passion to play after all the surgeries,” Fancil said after scoring 17 points in a win against South Bend Trinity last week. “I was dreading practice. I wasn’t playing well at all.”
Feeling like Warsaw wasn’t going to be the answer, despite being part of a talented junior class that stormed through middle school basketball and is now waiting in the wings behind a huge senior class, Fancil and her parents made a decision not many are afforded.
This fall, Fancil transferred to LCA. While basketball was a good part of the move, Fancil noted her grades at Warsaw had slipped, and socially, she was feeling out of place.
“I hadn’t thought about transferring, but I knew something had to change,” Fancil said about the start to her junior year. “My dad could tell I wasn’t myself, and asked me if I thought transferring to Lakeland (Christian Academy) would help. I’ve always wanted to grow my faith in Christ, and gave it a shot.”
LCA girls basketball head coach Allison Kauffman noted she wasn’t aware Fancil had intentions on transferring and entered the basketball program after the season officially started. Kauffman, in her third year, hadn’t heard of a scenario where a student switched schools after classes had started, but wasn’t complaining about the approved addition to her club.
“This is definitely a change coming from Warsaw to Lakeland Christian,” Kauffman said, who played at Class 1-A Fort Wayne Blackhawk before starring at Grace College. “I know that environment of playing in front of small crowds. So far, her focus has been getting back on the court and excelling, not worrying about some of the things come with playing at a bigger school. We’re all here and we have talent, and are thankful to get that opportunity to be on the court.”
Fancil claims her knee feels great, but does openly smile when asked about cutting and driving to the hoop. Watching her run, she doesn’t have a hitch, but can be seen every now and then favoring her left knee if someone does approach her. But after four sessions under the knife in less than three years, such could be understandable.
“I think my body is training itself to do things safer,” stated Fancil. “When I got out of the surgeries I was so scared of doing things like cutting and pivoting, but now I don’t even think about it. My leg feels normal. Sometimes my route does curve a little because I started doing that after I got hurt, and it’s just a mental thing.”
Fancil notes she has had the knack to score before at the middle school level, and is getting to show that off with LCA. The guard is averaging some gaudy numbers at 17.6 points per game (through Dec. 30), along with per game averages of 4.6 steals, 3.6 rebounds and 2.2 blocks, getting nine swats and 12 steals in the LCA Classic tournament this past week. On a pair of occasions, Fancil has outscored an opposing team and has gone past 20 points in four of her 10 games since starting play with the Cougars on Nov. 17. She missed the team’s first four games to meet eligibility requirements for practices.
When asked about what she can improve in her game, Fancil was quick to add, “I just want to be more of a confident player. I need to push through confidence on the court. I know my attitude sometimes needs to get better, but I have a lot of teammates that I’m confident with, and that’s motivation enough for me.”