Off a turnover, Castle View had an easy layup in its crosshairs. ThunderRidge’s Zach Keller had different ideas, chasing the Sabercats player down and pinning the ball against the backboard.
Then everything stopped. Keller let out a scream and the whole gym went silent as he lay on the ground.
Keller has big basketball aspirations and the immense talent needed to reach them. The only question mark over the past two seasons has been whether the 6-foot-9 center can remain healthy enough to stay on the court.
Devastating injuries are a part of sports. For many they can ruin a season. For high school athletes, they can derail a future. Keller saw that first hand with his oldest sister, Paige, who was once a promising talent herself on the basketball court.
“She now has two screws in her foot, and the colleges kind of wrote her off because she was injured and she didn’t really come back the same,” said Keller, whose parents were Division I athletes and sister Amanda plays volleyball at Bridgeport University in Connecticut. “So I want to make sure that I prove to the colleges that I’m fine.”
Thatap what made his mid-season injury so scary for Keller and those around him.
It served as a reminder basketball can be taken away in an instant. Fortunately, it was only a low ankle sprain, and he has since recovered after missing a few games. He played sparingly in ThunderRidge’s first two Class 5A state playoff games — blowout wins over Rocky Mountain (81-56) and Douglas County (80-55) — and should be available when the Grizzlies play in the Great 8.
But this isn’t the first time the big man has dealt with a serious injury. He missed almost the entirety of his sophomore year when he opted to have hip surgery on a torn labrum before his prep season began.
“We were expecting Zach to emerge on the scene and be a high-impact player immediately and we’ve had a lot of sophomores do similar type things,” ThunderRidge head coach Joe Ortiz said. “But obviously that was a tough break.”
Keller’s sophomore season appeared to be out the window. But he attacked rehab and came back earlier than expected, averaging 6.4 points over eight games.
“I came back two months earlier than I was supposed to,” Keller said. “And so I’ve always wanted to get better every single day since then. I kind of opened my mind up to (the idea that) basketball can be taken away at any moment. So I can’t take it for granted. And that’s kind of how I look at life from now on.”
Keller’s quick recovery was enough for college coaches to start believing again. Utah, TCU and Boise State have already reached out with scholarship offers and others have been keeping in close contact, including Colorado, Colorado State, Wake Forest and Virginia Tech.
Keller is ready to make a name for himself in high school basketball. ThunderRidge is good enough to make a run to the championship at the Broadmoor World Arena this weekend. The Grizzlies were picked No. 2 in the state before the season. But injuries have hurt them more than even Ortiz could’ve expected.
“Nothing [has been] easy,” Ortiz said. “We lost our backup point guard because he moved for family reasons. Our starting point guard has only played two games this year, he’s a three-year starter … Our third-string point guard is a freshman and will probably be a three-year starter. He’s been out with a broken collarbone. We’re down to point guard number four and so we’re getting tested big time.”
The fourth-seeded Grizzlies (10-2) next host fifth-seeded Chaparral (12-3) in the 5A Great 8. Win that and they will likely have a matchup with the top team in the state, the Cherry Creek Bruins, in the semifinals.
“I love playing with (my teammates). I know even if I didn’t come back, they could make a good run in the playoffs,” Keller said. “And I would say, have a good chance to win it.”
Now that Keller is back with the team, it makes them even more dangerous.
