Creating new memories

It was 22 months ago that she stood atop a ladder at the Spokane Arena, scissors in hand, after St. George’s won the 2004 State B girls basketball title.

Ask Titi Ala how long ago it seems.

“Like forever ago,” Ala said. “My injury felt like six years.”

That injury, two torn knee ligaments, cost her most of her junior season, and Ala was cleared to return to action a week before this season.

So far, the Dragons are 8-2, and Ala is averaging 11.8 points a game.

State B fans might remember Ala, who dominated the paint during the 2004 state tournament.

Ala averaged 13.5 points and 8.3 rebounds a game while making second-team all-tournament, including 18 points and 18 rebounds in a quarterfinal win over La Salle.

In the eighth game of the 2004 season, though, Ala went up for a rebound, caught her knee between two girls’ legs and went down.

Ala had torn both her LCL and the ACL (lateral and anterior cruciate ligaments).

So she watched from the sideline as the Dragons struggled to a 9-14 record, their first losing season since 1987-88.

“It’s just hard, knowing you can contribute to the team and I just did from the sidelines,” Ala said. “I hate watching basketball when I know I can play.”

It took a while for Ala to get the hang of things again and deal with soreness, as doctors used hamstring tendons to replace the knee ligaments.

“She works pretty hard by nature,” first-year SGS head coach Allie Bailey said. “I think it was just more of a balance of not wanting to push her too hard.”

The question, after ACL surgery, was whether Ala would regain the aggressiveness and athleticism that made her effective as a sophomore.

On Friday night against Republic, that question was answered.

Ala posted a quadruple-double – 11 points, 14 rebounds, 11 steals and 10 blocks – in a 12-point win.

“I think I’m aggressive,” the 5-foot-11 senior said. “If anything, I think I might have lost a step, but that’s about it. I think I’m back to where I was if not a little better.”

According to Bailey, Ala’s back to the point where she could play in college, and the former post at Mead and Eastern Washington should know.

“She can get a rebound at one end and take it all the way to the other end and dribble through three people,” Bailey said. “She’s 5-11 and can jump.

“I’d like to see her play in college. There’s a lot of untapped potential with her. She understands basketball, but I don’t think she understands how good she could be and how she could take over games.”

It isn’t a question of whether colleges would want her. It’s whether she wants them.

“I don’t know if I’m going to play basketball in college because my family stresses academics come first,” Ala said. “My dad and my brother were both college athletes, so we’ll see where it takes me.”

Ala’s father, Sanya, came to Whitworth from Nigeria on a track scholarship, and her brother, Jason, played basketball at SGS in the mid-‘90s and passed up athletic scholarships to walk on at an academic school, Johns Hopkins in Baltimore.

She realizes she got some athleticism from her dad but laments another inherited trait.

“The bad-knee genes,” Ala said, noting all three have torn ACLs.

With that behind her, Ala would like to take the Dragons back to the Arena, and as one of five Panorama teams with one league loss, they’d appear to have a decent chance.

“We’re improving, and I think that’s what matters,” Ala said. “I think we can make it to state. I want to make it to state. We better make it – it’s my senior year.”