Scrimmaging against Dansville, freshman power forward Kyle Lilley sprinted down the basketball court, sweat running down his face, determination in his eyes. The ball pounded against the floor as he drove toward the basket, going for a layup. Then it happened. Both teams froze in a worried silence, Kyle on the ground holding his ankle.

“It was at the very end of school, and we were starting basketball conditioning for summer,” current sophomore Kyle Lilley said. “I landed on someone’s foot and rolled my ankle and broke it.”

According to PhysioWorks, an organization where pain and injury is treated, in high school basketball, 22 percent of all male players had at least one time-loss injury, and 42 percent of those injuries were to the ankle or foot.

For many, being an injured player means being a benchwarmer, having to endure a long bus ride to only watch an away game or even fetching water for other teammates, just so he feels like he has something to do.

“It sucked having to sit out ‘cause I couldn’t really do anything, and I wasn’t getting any better,” Lilley said.

For others, being injured helps them realize their mistakes.

“It makes you stronger,” sophomore Faith Whitt said. “It makes you work harder because you never know when you’re going to get injured. I always push myself harder now because of the injuries I’ve had.”

Some players disobey the doctor’s orders and play on their ankle when it isn’t fully healed. “I felt like it was going to make myself better,” sophomore Josh Fletcher said. According to Sharecare, an association that provides programs and resources to improve health, a grade two sprain takes, on average, four to six weeks to heal. When exercising the sprain, it is important to not over-do it.

“I reinjured it afterwards because I was working on it too much,” freshman Paige Brown said. After her ankle had healed last spring, Brown was trying to get it back on track by running, but went too fast and sprained it again.

For an athlete, sitting out of a sport that he has devoted a good portion of his time to is almost the worst thing in the world. “It’s really hard to watch your team play without you,” Whitt said. “Sometimes they struggle or sometimes they do better, but when they’re struggling you feel like it’s your fault that you’re not out there to help.”