Photo Courtesy of Susquehanna Athletics
By Logan Moyer, Sports Editor
Julia Roth went up for a layup and came down a little bit quicker than she had initially anticipated.
She knew the feeling instantly. She had torn her ACL. Again.
Roth, the leading scorer on Susquehanna’s women’s basketball team in her sophomore season, was hoping to continue her dominance in her junior season. That was until she went up for that layup in the fourth quarter of the first game.
“When I hit the ground after that layup, I just knew it was torn,” Roth said. “I felt the pop and felt it get hit.”
Roth, a forward, had previously torn her ACL in her senior basketball season at Allentown Central Catholic High School while playing in a District 11 Class 4A semifinal matchup.
She missed the rest of the Vikettes’ playoff run but recovered in time for her rookie season at Susquehanna. This time, however, she would miss an entire season.
“It was very disappointing,” she said. “We were returning a lot, and we had a really great preseason… we felt really ready and prepared for the games.”
The River Hawks were in Pittsburgh playing at Chatham University’s tournament to open up the season. When the team returned home, Roth underwent surgery to fix her right knee.
After the surgery, she took one day to sit on the couch. She knew there was another long journey ahead, one that would start the next day in physical therapy.
“Your muscle really atrophies when you’re on crutches for a while,” Roth said. “You lose all your muscle definition in your leg and your hips get really weak, so it’s all about starting to activate those muscles and get them back to firing again.”
Everybody has a slightly different timetable, but torn ACLs usually take around six to nine months to fully recover from, according to the Cleveland Clinic. The first three months are all about regaining range of mobility, then physically moving around starts shortly after.
Around the six-month mark is when most start scaling up to normal activities like running and turning. It’s essentially just building your injured leg back up from scratch.
“This is different for everyone, but your muscles on your surgery leg have to equal 95% of your non-surgery leg,” Roth said. “You’re going to keep building muscle and keep doing different tests until you’re closer to being perfectly even.”
Roth eventually got the all-clear checkmark from her trainer, who happens to be good friends with SU head coach Gabby Holko.
Since she’s resumed full basketball activities, some would think that it would be natural for Roth to fear injuring her knee again. After all, it’s already happened twice.
But when Roth’s on the court, nothing but basketball really seems to matter.
“When I get ready and I’m out there, I’m just ready to play and feel like any other basketball player,” she said. “It doesn’t really cross my mind. That’s something that I’ve worked on.”
All Roth’s ever really known has been sports. She has more varsity letters than anybody in Central Catholic history (16), playing soccer and running cross country in the fall, playing basketball in the winter and running track in the spring.
In soccer, she was named the team’s most-valuable player on a Vikette squad that won a state championship. She also medaled with a ninth-place finish at the District 11 cross country championships in the fall before averaging 12.5 points per basketball game in the winter.
Roth said that she couldn’t imagine her life without playing sports. That’s why the thought of quitting after her second ACL tear never crossed her mind.
“I’ve been playing soccer since I was three,” she said. “I’ve always loved playing sports and being competitive, as well as the teamwork and bonding with my teammates.”
She grew up in an athletic family as the oldest of four. One of her younger sisters, Sammy, was a three-sport athlete in high school before landing at fellow Landmark Conference institution in Scranton to play soccer. Brother Tommy is also a three-sport athlete currently in his senior year at Central Catholic.
Even her youngest sibling Emily, 10, is a three-sport athlete in cross country, soccer and basketball.
“It’s always been a very active family. We just grew up playing outside,” Julia said. “The four of us are also each other’s biggest teammates.”
“I can’t even imagine not continuing to play sports,” she went on. “It’s just something that’s so instilled with me and my siblings that we push each other to always be better but are also cheering each other on every step of the way.”
The Roth family could build a trophy room add-on to their house if they wanted to. All four siblings love sports so much that their knees can’t seem to keep up.
Julia, of course, has torn her right ACL twice. Sammy has also done so twice, injuring her right knee in her freshman year of high school and then left during the preseason of her rookie soccer season at Scranton. Tommy also tore his left knee during his freshman football season.
“It’s a mess,” Julia said. “It’s something horrible that unfortunately happened to our family multiple times, but it’s something that we now know how to deal with and know how to support each other.”
All five ACLs were repaired by the same doctor, Wayne Luchetti of Lehigh Valley Physician Group. Sammy had just recovered from her first ACL tear when Julia went down.
“It’s a long rehab of not being able to do the sport that you love,” Julia said. “But it’s always good to have my siblings because we are very close. It’s nice to have each other to lift up and remind each other that we can get through this.”
Two of a kind
Since arriving on campus in Selinsgrove, Julia Roth and Julia Pinckert have been inseparable. Before that, really.
The pair met during an overnight recruiting visit at Landmark rival Catholic University, and both happened to be visiting Susquehanna the next weekend.
“Matt [Donohue], the coach at Catholic, is a good friend, and we joke all the time that he’s the reason they’re together,” Holko said. “When they came here, they knew this is where they wanted to be.”
Pinckert and Roth committed to Susquehanna within a span of a week. Roth came first, and then Pinckert shortly after.
“The day after [she committed] we started texting about living together and being roommates when we were here,” Roth said. “We’ve honestly just been the best of friends ever since.”
It’s almost like they’re sisters, except they share the same first name instead of the last. They’re even co-presidents of Susquehanna’s Student-Athlete Advisory Committee (SAAC).
“I don’t see that friendship going anywhere,” Holko said. “I’m excited to see them on the court again, healthy and together.”
Pinckert was one of the players that had to step up last season in Roth’s absence. Pinckert, a guard, took on more of a ball-dominant role offensively and was more of a focal point for opposing defenses.
“It was tough last year, but I think it was really good for our team in terms of being able to lean on other people,” Holko said. “Any game last year, we didn’t know who was going to be our leading scorer. That was kind of a cool thing.”
A season on the sidelines
Despite losing their best player in the first game of the season, the River Hawk women did alright without Roth.
They posted a similar overall win-loss record and had an identical 12-6 Landmark Conference record as the season before, when Roth was fully healthy.
That didn’t make it any less hard for Roth to sit on the bench.
“When they had to run sprints, or when they were going through a hard drill, I felt bad not being able to help,” she said. “Or when they’re doing something great, and everyone would run on the court celebrating, I would stand up and cheer, but I was on crutches.”
“It was always hard to feel like you’re just missing out all the time,” she said.
Roth still had an impact from off the court – she helped in any way she could, whether that was being the hype-man on the bench or essentially being another assistant coach.
“She was like a student assistant on the bench because of how high her IQ is,” Holko said. “She’s just the ultimate teammate; a kid that our girls love to be around.”
The admiration from her teammates is clear. It was during a practice this season that Holko broke the news that Roth was one of 61 NCAA athletes from around the country to receive the prestigious Kay Yow Servant Leader Award.
She was mobbed by her teammates.
Kay Yow, a member of the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame, was a legendary coach at North Carolina State before taking a leave of absence from coaching in January 2009. She died from stage four breast cancer a few weeks later, aged 66.
Per the website of the Kay Yow Cancer Fund, the award is presented to “student-athletes who best embody the characteristics of Coach Kay Yow – people with a servant’s spirit and a commitment to selfless leadership both on and off the court and athletic field.”
Roth is one of only three Division III players from around the country to be honored with the award.
“It’s something I never expected,” Roth said. “It’s such an honor to have that recognition.”
“Julia is truly worthy of the Kay Yow Servant Leader Award because she exemplifies the values that Coach Yow stood for,” Holko said in a press release. “She shows up with enthusiasm and a genuine smile, inspiring so many young girls who may fall in love with basketball because of her.”
Roth is studying political justice at SU with plans to go to law school next year. Her dad is an attorney and name partner at a law firm in Allentown, the same firm where her mom has been an office manager since 2018.
“I think I’ve wanted to work there for as long as I can remember,” she said. “I love the work that they do to help our community, so that’s exactly where I want to end up after law school.”
Because of her lost season, Roth could play one more year wherever she winds up for law school. But for right now, she’s worried about the task at hand.
“We want to go far,” Roth said. “I think we have a really good shot at winning it all, just because of how well our team is working together and how well we’ve been practicing.”