A GREAT SPECTACLE LOUISVILLE'S KELSO TO FOLLOW SISTER'S LEAD, PLAY WITH TORN LIGAMENT.

Byline: Rich Hammond Staff Writer

Younger sisters constantly strive to be like their older siblings, but not like this.

Liz Kelso, a junior forward on the Louisville High of Woodland Hills girls' basketball team, is playing with a torn ACL in her knee, just as her sister Sarah did last season.

There is constant pain in the knee, and coach Ron Haywood urged Liz to have surgery and come back next season at 100 percent. But after watching her sister play, and thrive, with the same injury last season, Liz decided to delay the surgery until the spring.

``The doctor who treated me was the same one who treated my sister,'' Liz said. ``He told me that I had a torn ACL and then he said, `I'll get a knee brace ready for you.' After dealing with my sister, he knew that I was going to want to play.''

What makes the situation eerily coincidental is that the sisters suffered the injuries in the same situation. Liz's injury occurred in the Regents' final fall-league game of 2001, and Sarah went down in the last fall game of 2000 when an opposing player took her legs out during a rebound attempt.

Haywood, prohibited from having any contact with his players during the fall-league games, sat in the stands and watched the seemingly innocent play against Cleveland of Reseda.

``She just came up to defend a girl, and she planted her foot and the knee snapped,'' Haywood said. ``She didn't go down in pain, she just froze, and then a minute later she straightened up and walked slowly off the court.

``I just sat there in the stands thinking, `Oh no, please, not again.' I couldn't believe it. One of the team parents is a doctor, so he went down to look at her, and he just looked at me and shook his head.''

The standard prescription for a torn ACL is surgery and six months of recovery, but as long as an athlete can handle the pain, not much more damage can be done to the knee by playing on it.

Kelso said she was somewhat tentative upon her return because she didn't know what to expect, but Haywood said it wasn't long before she was back to normal.

``I know a lot of grown men who couldn't do what she's doing,'' Haywood said. ``A lot of people, when they first come back, they are very passive, but Liz only knows how to play one way, and that's 100 percent aggressive.

``She's not a real fast girl, but she has a great court sense. We're talking about a (5-foot-8) power forward here.''

Kelso, who jokes that she is 5-8 ``only when I can straighten my knee,'' already had undergone three surgeries on her other knee, which was injured while she played volleyball as a freshman. But she wasn't sure what to expect from the ACL.

The knee ``pops'' occasionally during games, but that puts Kelso on the bench only briefly.

``I was kind of nervous at first, because I thought I would be in a lot of pain,'' Kelso said. ``But then once I played a couple games, I knew it wouldn't be too bad.''

Now here's the scary part. There is a third Kelso sister, Megan, a sophomore guard on the Alemany of Mission Hills varsity team. At this point, Megan Kelso still has two knees intact, but perhaps she should be extra careful about playing fall-league games.

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Louisville High basketball player Liz Kelso will play this season with a torn ACL. Her older sister accomplished the same feat.

Joe Binoya/Special to the Daily News