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IllustrateD volume 24, issue 4 71 f w o m e n ' s B A s K e T B A L L r e c r u i T i n g f e A T u r e : e r i c a m o o r e BY KYLE CHARTERS KCharters@GoldandBlack.com W hen Erica Moore first injured her knee more than a year ago, she couldn't have imagined she'd still be dealing with it now. Yet, here she is, readying for Purdue after seeing her senior season come to a premature end. The Boilermaker signee was eliminat- ed from the Class 4A state tournament in the sectionals in mid-February, with her Mt. Ver- non squad unable to repeat as champions; the Marauders won the Class 3A title a year ago, before being bumped up a class as part of the IHSAA's "success factor." They had lost in the Class 3A title game a year earlier. But Moore's injury was a big reason why Mt. Vernon had an early exit. The 6-foot-2 forward played only a handful of regular-season games before the tournament, and she was extremely limited. "The first game coming back, I was only al- lowed to play like four minutes, which was cra- zy," Moore said a couple days after Mt. Vernon lost to Anderson in the sectional final. "Then six, then eight and eventually I went up to 15 minutes. The last game I played, it was only up to 15 minutes, but it was depending on how my knee felt." Moore's injury saga began more than a year ago. In January 2013, she had surgery to repair the meniscus in her right knee, a relatively mi- nor knee injury that can require only a month or so of rehab. And Moore, a Fortville, Ind., native, did return only a few weeks later, missing only seven games, to help push Mt. Vernon to the state championship game, where she scored 14 points and had a Class 3A-record 15 rebounds in the win over Hamilton Heights. But during the tour- nament, her knee had started acting up again, with it becoming increasing bothersome. Moore played in only a couple AAU events last sum- mer — she was trying to rest and rehab in hopes the knee would improve — before finally deciding to get a second surgery. "I had a cyst from the first surgery because I came back too early," Moore said. "It just developed, then they found some damage in the cartilage that they had to clean up." The Nov. 1 operation left her out a majority of the season, severely dampened Mt. Vernon's repeat Making A Comeback Moore's senior season marred by injury Greenfield Daily Reporter Erica Moore's senior season wasn't what she had hoped, due to preseason surgery that limited her minutes at Mt. Vernon.