i After returning from knee injury, Arbour helps Cony to playoffs
Morning Sentinel
After returning from knee injury, Arbour helps Cony to playoffs
BY TRAVIS BARRETT
Staff Writer Kennebec Journal & Morning Sentinel 03/28/2009

BY TRAVIS BARRETT

Staff Writer

Chelsea Arbour felt a little like she was playing in somebody else's sneakers.

Off her game and not her former self, the Cony High School senior guard was frustrated. She knew what she used to do, how she used to do it, but none of that worked for her now. Day after day, practice after practice, the frustration began to subside. She began to find new things she liked about her play.

Eventually, Arbour, who missed her entire junior season to a torn knee ligament, found comfort in those new sneakers.

Having averaged 15 points per game and surging late to help the Rams gain an unlikely Eastern Maine Class A tournament berth, Arbour has been chosen as the Kennebec Journal's Girls Basketball Player of the Year. Oak Hill sophomore forward Maggie Sabine was also considered.

"I found out that I was a better shooter than I thought, but I also found out that probably the biggest thing for me is that a team player is the team's best player," said Arbour, who tore her anterior cruciate ligament prior to the 2007-08 season. "I wasn't as strong as before, so I couldn't do all the things I was used to. I needed more help from my teammates, and they helped make everything easier.

"We all made each other better."

It took Arbour time to realize that she was recovered from the devastating knee injury -- suffered while she was playing, of all things, soccer.

"I wasn't even going to play (soccer), because all my friends were playing field hockey," said Arbour, who traditionally used soccer to stay in shape for basketball.

After enduring more than a year of physical therapy as she prepared for this basketball season, Arbour entered the year with trepidation. She had spent her injured year thinking about how this wasn't supposed to happen, about how she had shown so much promise as a freshman and sophomore on the Cony varsity.

Arbour admitted that through most of the first half of this season, she felt out of sorts.

"I felt bad for her," said first-year Cony coach Karen Sirois. "It was frustrating for her, and I think for me in seeing how frustrated she was. A lot of it was she lost some of her first step, but part of it was the mental thing for her.

"Basketball a lot more mental than it is physical. A lot of athletes try and use the physical to outmuscle their opponents. Now (Arbour) had to think, 'How can I outsmart the other player?' "

In January, in a virtual must-win game for Cony at Nokomis, Arbour finally felt like her old self. She scored a game-high 30 points, leading the Rams to an overtime victory with a half dozen three-point goals, all of them in the second half and overtime.

Arbour followed that four nights later with 28 more points in a win against Morse.

All involved pointed to the win against Nokomis as the turning point.

"Even the practices before that week, I was so frustrated," Arbour said. "As long as the team was going good, I was team-first, and I didn't worry about it as much for the team. But I was so down on myself, because I knew I could do better.

"Coach told us halfway through, 'Let's just start over.' It kind of felt good hearing that, coming from our coach. She just let it go and started over, and I tried to, too."

"I felt like Chelsea always played hard, but she was definitely focused (on her frustration)," Sirois said. "I remember her first half (against Nokomis). She was shooting, but she wasn't shooting the ball as well as she did in the second half. This is where I think she changed in second half of season -- she started hitting big shots for us. Second half of that game and then into overtime, Brittany Ford hit the first one and she hit the next one and it was over.

"I think she loved those clutch moments. I don't think you find that in a lot of people."

Arbour also loves the Cony program.

During her junior year, she attended every practice once she was cleared to resume light activity, and then-coach Paul Vachon insisted she be on the bench -- in uniform -- for games.

Still, Arbour said it was difficult because she could only do so much from the bench.

"When our team was down, I'd try to give them positive words -- but there was nothing I could actually do to lead by example," said Arbour, who is still deciding between the University of Maine and the University of Maine at Farmington, with no basketball commitments yet to either. "I could only talk, but talking just is not as effective. You have to be out there helping."

She got her shot this year to help, and she took advantage.

"She absolutely loves basketball, she really does," Sirois said. "She said, 'I cannot wait to start practicing.' You don't get that from a lot of kids. There are some people who love playing in games, but people who have that big of a passion for basketball like all parts of it. She's one of those. I remember her telling me how happy she was just to be back at practice.

"It must have stunk to get hurt, but she must have felt really great in those moments in her senior year that were great -- they must have been even more so."

Travis Barrett -- 621-5648

tbarrett@centralmaine.com

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