Our family is whole again because someone in that locker room was missing,’” Bunten said.

“She looks back at me, and she's like, ‘What am I supposed to do?’ I said, ‘Go in there, be with your team.’ And I can remember stopping what he was saying and telling the team, ‘Take a deep breath, we're whole again. Puiggros, too, left the trainer’s room and approached the doorway to the locker room, wanting to be with her teammates. Sallee made his way to the locker room not only to make adjustments before the second half, looking to secure victory and punch Ball State’s ticket to the MAC Championship game, but to reassure Puiggros’ teammates. Bunten said that meant a lot to Puiggros because during the limited 15-minute halftime, Sallee and other coaches took that time to check on the wounded Cardinal. The head coach put his arm around the player to encourage her. However, she does remember Sallee by her side on the floor holding her hand, she remembers Bunten’s reassuring words and remembers her teammates crying as she made her way to the trainer’s room.īunten remembers during halftime, he and Puiggros were in the trainer’s room dealing with her injury when Sallee walked in. Puiggros said it’s hard for her to remember a lot of what happened in Cleveland, although she has watched it back since. Head coach Brady Sallee said whenever a player goes down with an injury, it's a “wind out of the sails feeling.” “Not again,” Puiggros yelled, smacking the floor with tears running down her face.Īnother season-ending injury on the same leg. Even though he was on the opposite end of the court, he could tell by Puiggros’ reaction that she knew she tore her ACL for the second time. That was until she fell to the hardwood floor with a non-contact injury.īrad Bunten, assistant athletic trainer for Ball State, said “you don’t ever forget that feeling” of tearing your ACL. 1 seed Rockets, and Puiggros was on her way to playing for a MAC Championship the next day against Buffalo. In that semifinal, the Cardinals were beating the No. Her third season, in 2021-22, Puiggros played 17 minutes per game through 30 games, feeling the best she had in her entire time at Ball State. After tearing her ACL in her first season with the Cardinals in 2019-20, Estel Puiggros only played in 11 games the next season.

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