Bittersweet endings are fueling forward Dominique Duck going into her senior season at Western.
After earning Most Valuable Player honors at the 2008 Sun Belt Conference tournament, Duck and the Lady Toppers earned the team’s first NCAA tournament bid since 2003. The dream run ended in the form of a 92-60 loss to UTEP. On top of that, Duck tore her anterior cruciate ligament at the end of the season, needing surgery and extensive rehab.
“A lot went through my mind (after the injury),” Duck said. “I thought I would have to red-shirt. When I got the call, the first thing I thought was this was going to be a long process. It has been.”
Duck rose to the challenge of rehabilitating and making it back to playing status, but the challenge on the court is as steep as ever. The graduation of former Lady Topper Crystal Kelly and the unknown future of sophomore forward Arnika Brown has made the post thin on experience.
Following a season in which Duck garnered second-team all-Sun Belt Conference honors while averaging 11.5 points and 4.4 rebounds per game, Duck, who was also named a preseason Sun Belt Player of the Year, will have to carry the burden of being the lone senior on the court.
From a leadership standpoint, head coach Mary Taylor Cowles believes she is ready.
“I think going into our season, we would’ve all said Dominique is going to be there, with the way she ended her season last year,” Cowles said. “Extremely confident, playing extremely well, maybe the best on our team, through the Sun Belt tournament and that NCAA game, obviously I would say Dominique is going to be a constant (performer) for us, and I still believe that.”
Another challenge for the Pittsburgh native will be coming back from that torn ACL after an entire offseason of nothing but rehabilitation. Duck said she has been medically cleared to play and is 100 percent ready to get on the court.
Duck, who has played a slasher role for the majority of her career, will have to help guide a team that is heavy on young faces. The team features five freshmen and four sophomores on its 12-woman squad.
In Cowles’ eyes, the work Duck put into the offseason has shown she is ready to lead this season.
“She’s extremely eager to get on the floor,” she said. “But the one thing about Dominique that we’re so proud of is that she busted her tail this summer and this fall with what she had to get done medically, which is no surprise, though, because that’s kind of what Dominique’s made of. She’s going to do what she has to do, and she goes beyond, and that’s exactly what she’s done.”
No matter the challenge, Duck said the team just has to work to do whatever it takes to avoid another bittersweet taste.
“I really don’t feel a lot of pressure on myself,” she said. “We have all our starters returning except Crystal. So I feel that me, (junior guard) Kenzie (Rich), (sophomore forward) Arnika (Brown), (sophomore guard) Amy (McNear), (sophomore guard) Hope (Brown) and them, we understand that there’s a lot of scoring that needs to be made up, and we know we can divide that up between all of us.”
Reach David Harten at sports@chherald.com.
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