The help of teammates, coaches, friends and family ensured this season would not be a lost one for a former Estevan Comprehensive School (ECS) Elecs captain.
Tess Lindquist, who wore the C for the ECS Elecs senior girls basketball team in 2015-16, was set to make her debut this past fall as a member of the Medicine Hat College Rattlers women’s basketball team when tragedy struck. Only days before her first semester began at the school, Lindquist was involved in a motor vehicle accident where the athlete suffered a severe concussion.
A month after the injury’s diagnosis and the symptoms still causing great harm, Lindquist and Rattlers head coach Clayton Nielsen decided to put this season on the shelf with a focus on getting healthy in time for the 2017-18 campaign. The setback prevented Lindquist from reuniting on the court with 2014-15 ECS Elecs senior girls basketball team captain Kristen Skjonsby who joined the Rattlers in the fall of 2015.
“I’m still recovering from it,” said Lindquist, 18. “It was a pretty traumatic accident I guess you could say. It’s been quite hard, but I have really good roommates actually. Kristen is one of my roommates. We live in a residence. So, I’ve had a really large support group especially having my sister and grandparents (already living in Medicine Hat) too.”
Lindquist has not been able to physically participate in any Rattlers practices or games this season as a result of the injury and also had to drop a few of her classes in her two-year Occupational Therapy Assistant/Physical Therapy Assistant program resulting in her having to extend her studies at the school an extra year. Her hope is that she’ll be able to engage physically with the team by the end of the semester, but up until that time her commitment continues to focus on helping the Rattlers in other ways.
“She’s actually been really good with being a part of the team and just helping out wherever she can,” said Nielsen, noting Lindquist has compiled stats for the coaching staff, run the shot clock during practice and acted as a support teammate from the bench. “It’s a matter of just being there to help us put a team in. If we need her to do something she does it.”
Nielsen said an injury to another Rattlers player, Rachel Sherven, helped open a door for Skjonsby this season. He said the second year wing has seen a major increase in her minutes and responsibility on court from last season and regularly starts at the small forward position.
“She’s doing good,” he said. “She’s definitely a very energetic fast-paced player. We’re trying to work on her just having a little more pace in regards to not always going 100 miles an hour and trying to get her to slow down a little bit and use change of speed to her advantage…At this level if you don’t change your speed you’re still pretty easy to guard even if you are going really fast.”
The Rattlers, which currently sit fourth in the Alberta Colleges Athletic Conference (ACAC) South Division standings with a record of 8-7, managed to add two former Elecs to their roster through the positive connections made between Saskatchewan high schools and the college’s coaching staff over the years as well as their ability to sell the school as an alternative place for kids to play instead of the University of Saskatchewan and the University of Regina.
Skjonsby said Medicine Hat College and the Rattlers will provide her with a four-year university-transfer degree in Commerce from Mount Royal University as well as a place to play the game she loves during post-secondary studies. She said basketball in the ACAC is fast, highly competitive and a definite step up from the high school game meaning there is a lot more needed in terms of commitment from its players.
“I pretty much just do basketball and school,” said Skjonsby, 20. “We practise every day of the week plus we have to do our own shooting drills outside of practice plus workouts...There is also a volunteer aspect of our team as we do a lot of volunteer stuff throughout the year. You need to have good time management to do that and have good grades because schooling takes a lot of time as well.”
Lindquist said studying at Medicine Hat College and playing for the Rattlers has been a goal of hers for years due to her family connections to the city. She said having Skjonsby there to provide support in getting adjusted to a collegiate athlete’s life and settling in with an injury is a big bonus.
“She’s got a spot on next year’s team,” said Nielsen. “I told her that ever since basically October when we knew that the concussion was pretty bad that she didn’t have to worry about basketball. We would have her next year and she just needs to get healthy and come back.”
