THE ROAD BACK: After Suffering a Serious Knee Injury Last Season, Moniteau Senior Chason Delarosa-Rugg Tackling Physical and Mental Comeback

WEST SUNBURY, Pa. (EYT/D9) — Sometimes Chason Delarosa-Rugg feels a twinge in his surgically repaired left knee.

Just mild pain and soreness, but enough to notice.

It’s manageable.

What sometimes isn’t is what’s going on in Delarosa-Rugg’s head when he feels it. The senior guard on the Moniteau boys basketball team is flooded again with doubt, fear and worry about going through what he did a little more than 10 months ago.

(Pictured above, Chason Delarosa-Rugg/photo by Holly Mead)

“Honestly, it was very tough coming back in the beginning,” Delarosa-Rugg said. “Just being able to have enough trust in my leg and being able to figure out how to use my muscles to take a shot and all of that. I’m still trying to figure it out, but I’ve definitely come a long way.”

Initially, the injury didn’t seem all that severe. It wasn’t a torn ACL or MCL or PCL, but Delarosa-Rugg knew he had done something to that knee.

At first he though he had only hyperextended it during a loss at Keystone on Jan. 27.

“I thought I’d be back in a week or two,” he said.

But soon it began to sink in that something was more wrong than a simple hyperextension. He had trouble even walking.

Then an MRI revealed the true nature of the damage to his knee.

And it was a bit surprising.

Delarosa-Rugg had torn his meniscus in two places — relatively rare.

One is what is called a bucket-handle tear. It’s the most severe damage that can happen to the meniscus and requires immediate surgery.

Delarosa-Rugg went under the knife on Feb. 1.

“It was an emotional time,” he said. “When the doctor said I was done, I broke down because we were playing so well at the time and I was playing well and we were going to make the playoffs and I was so excited.”

Delarosa-Rugg was in for a long, grueling recovery.

But he tackled it with aplomb like he does with the sports he plays.

“I couldn’t walk for six weeks and then I started going to physical therapy after that,” Delarosa-Rugg said. “At about four months, five months they said I could start easing back into sports again. It was just a long process with the meniscus. They said it could take just as long, if not longer, than an ACL if you don’t do the proper treatments.”

Those treatments were sometimes agonizing.

“It was pretty brutal,” Delarosa-Rugg said. “Very painful. I had to learn to walk again and that probably took a couple of weeks. It was just rough. I didn’t think it was going to be that hard and that long.”

Through it all, Delarosa-Rugg remained focused on his goal of getting back to playing as soon as he could.

He said while he is not at 100% yet, he is getting closer every day.

Last Friday in the season-opener for Moniteau against Johnsonburg, Delarosa-Rugg could barely control his emotions.

“It was a big mental game for me,” he admitted. “I was trying to figure out what to do and when to do it and how to keep pain from arriving in my knee.”

On Wednesday, he was in better charge of his emotions and came up clutch in the fourth quarter of a win over A-C Valley, scoring nine of his 11 points in the frame as the Warriors pulled away for a win.

“In the fall, he was shooting the ball really, really well,” said Moniteau coach Mike Jewart. “But there wasn’t the intensity then that there is now. I think he has to figure out how to get his legs back under him and that’s gonna take some time. The biggest thing is he can’t get frustrated. I know he was frustrated in the Johnsonburg game. He came back in during the fourth quarter (against A-C Valley) and played really, really well. Hats off to him.”

Delarosa-Rugg said he started to feel like himself again during that fourth quarter.

He said he also knows that his comeback is still very much a work in progress.

“The hardest part is definitely getting my jump shot back,” Delarosa-Rugg said. “It is so hard to try to get the right balance and the right power on everything. So I’m still getting there because my jump shot is definitely not the same as it was.”

He’s determined to keep working.

Moniteau has some high hopes this season with a solid starting five and a deep bench.

The goals are lofty ones and Delarosa-Rugg is a key to achieving them.

“Our goal is to win the conference, win the KSAC,” Jewart said. “We have a conference game on Friday (at home against Clarion-Limestone) and at Keystone on Tuesday, then we don’t have another conference game until after Christmas. Hopefully we can use that time to figure out how to get his legs back under him and go from there.”

He has shown signs already.

His quickness is there — Delarosa-Rugg has always had a knack, too, for slashing to the rim.

It’s just a matter now of getting back into form — both physically and mentally.

“My lateral movement is fine,” he said. “I feel fine. It’s just the up and down, being able to put pressure on it and even a jump stop. It can cause pain sometimes. But in the end it’s just a big mental game for me. I still ice it almost every night and after games. It’s coming along. It’s a process.”