Surgery goes well for Broncos’ Ross ACL tear will still keep star out for year

Hampden guard-forward Tanna Ross had successful surgery on her right knee Monday, but she’ll still sit on the bench for her junior season while trying to recover from a torn anterior cruciate ligament.

Ross’ mother, Sheree Ross, said everything went well Monday and the athletic 6-footer was home in Newburgh resting, even if she’s still a bit upset that she won’t get to play this season.

“I told her, you still have your senior year and college ahead of you,” Sheree Ross said Monday evening. “So you miss three months of basketball. La-dee-dah.”

The 2005 Big East Conference Player of the Year in Class A and an All-Maine honorable mention last year, Ross suffered her season-ending injury on Oct. 17 while playing in a pick-up game at the Old Town-Orono YMCA.

Ross was playing in a coed game with Katie Bergeron, a friend on the Old Town High basketball team. The injury happened in the course of the game.

“She went up to block a shot,” Sheree Ross said. “Her knee went one way and her foot went another. That’s all it took.”

Sheree Ross said Tanna continued to play over several weeks, and even went to a tournament in New Hampshire with the Crusaders, an AAU team based in Derry, N.H., because her knee felt better.

But in the Crusaders’ second game during the tournament, her knee gave out again. Ross went to see Dr. Stephen Typaldos in Brewer, who confirmed that she had torn her ACL.

Ross will likely return to school next Monday and start therapy in two weeks. Recovery will take 4-6 months.

Sheree Ross said Typaldos was optimistic that the knee injury won’t harm Tanna Ross’ basketball future, which seemed bright before the injury. Among the schools that have expressed an interest in Ross include the University of Maine, Villanova, Syracuse, Siena, Holy Cross and Boston University.

Ross recently went to a UMaine game and talked to Black Bears point guard Margaret Elderton, who missed last season with a knee injury.

Ross helped Hampden earn the No. 9 berth in the 2005 Eastern Maine Class A playoffs, although the Broncos lost to No. 8 Lewiston in a prelim game.

She was also named second-team all-conference as a freshman.

Ross’ injury happened just a few weeks before her Big East Conference Player of the Year boys counterpart, Mark Socoby of Bangor, suffered an ACL tear, which means the conference’s reigning MVPs will both sit on the bench.

Socoby, a senior, is scheduled to have surgery Dec. 7.

“I’ve thought about calling his mother, just to talk about it,” Sheree Ross said. “We could have an ACL team.”

Sports Done Right meeting

A Sports Done Right community forum will be held in Brewer Wednesday at 7 p.m.

The forum, which is being organized by Brewer’s Sports Done Right committee, will be held at Jeff’s Catering in Brewer.

Sports Done Right is a federally-funded initiative administered by the University of Maine that seeks to define healthy interscholastic and community sports programs. Brewer is one of 12 pilot sites around the state.

For more information, contact the Brewer Parks & Recreation Department at 989-5199.

Jessica Bloch can be reached at 990-8193, 1-800-310-8600 or jbloch@bangordailynews.net.