It started out as just a twinge.
It was at first a heavy feeling in her non-hitting arm. Some tingling – like that feeling when your foot falls asleep – and numbness followed but then it got worse. And Bree Spangler didn't know what was going on.
“There isn't a name for it per se, but I injured the nerve bundles in my shoulder and they weren't entirely sure which one it was, so it was difficult to treat and fix,” the upcoming senior outside hitter said. “My athletic trainer (graduate assistant Emma Nye) thought it was because of diving and rolling. I guess I'm not very graceful with that.”
Numbness began all the way down her left arm and into her fingertips. Her shoulder and trap region swelled. A powerful attack that would hit her arm the wrong way on a block would stop her in her tracks.
What Spangler, a six rotation player for the Sycamores, describes as a “freak” injury forced her to miss seven key Missouri Valley Conference matches during the month of October. Forced on the sidelines in a sling, the Coldwater, Mich. native watched as her team went 2-5 in that stretch and felt a bit helpless.
Not that it wasn't a banner year for the Lady Sycamores, though, who finished with a 17-16 overall mark – the first back-to-back winning seasons since 1981-82 and just the second time in school history.
The goal and team motto last season was “never going back”.
Never going back to missing the league's annual six-bid tournament.
Never going back to losing seasons.
But the Valley is tough. Four teams earned berths into the NCAA Tournament in 2015, and playing without Spangler forced head coach Traci Dahl-Skinner to mix up her lineup. The Sycamores finished what Spangler and Dahl-Skinner both said was a “disappointing” 6-12 in the league.
“At that time we didn't have a player that could efficiently come in and play six rotations,” Dahl-Skinner said. “So we had to fill it in with a front row outside hitter and a back row defensive specialist and it created a different dynamic with the team because now you're dealing with a whole bunch of substitutions.”
Already running a 6-2 offense, the Sycamores' lineup had little room to play with substitutions. Dahl-Skinner said it took the team way too long to figure out the right fit to fill in Spangler's absence.
She finally returned on October 30 in a road match at Drake, but just wasn't quite the same. Before the injury, Spangler tallied 15 double-digit kill matches in the first 19 of the season before the injury. She failed to hit above double digits after her return and committed nearly a third of her attack errors in the final seven matches of the season.
While she did feel somewhat back to her old self during those last seven matches of 2015, she said hesitancy played a major factor.
“I was hesitant to dive and go after a ball because that's what they said was the initiating event that caused the injury. So, I would say that I wasn't in pain but I was definitely hesitant and it did hinder my play because of it,” Spangler said.
But now the 2014 All-MVC First team, MVC Scholar-Athlete and CoSIDA Academic All-District selection – who still holds a 3.98 GPA as a junior in speech and language pathology - is back in full swing with the Sycamores, who are midway through their spring season with the Indy Collegiate Invitational coming up this weekend at the Academy in Indianapolis.
ISU has picked up wins over Indiana and Tennessee in the first two weekends of spring play. Spangler credits gym culture to some positive gains on the floor before the team officially reports for fall training in June.
“The gym culture this spring has been great. We've had really successful practices and everyone is working hard,” Spangler said. “It's just been really enjoyable as well. The coaches are on board and everybody's pushing each other to work harder every day.”
Spangler said she's back to feeling 100 percent and the hesitancy is gone. She's got goals in mind for her upcoming senior season.
“Right now, I'm knocking on wood. But, it (her arm) feels good. I'm ready to go,” Spangler said. “I think to myself sometimes that I would have been able to be an all-conference selection as a sophomore, junior and senior. But I'm coming back as a senior and really going to establish myself in that back in that position.”
