SLIPPERY ROCK — Morgan Siebka was enjoying her best collegiate basketball season at Florida Southern College when her right knee buckled.

Again.

It was her second major knee injury in four years.

Siebka tore her ACL during an AAU game on the last day of March before her junior season at Slippery Rock High School.

Eight months later, she was back on the court.

Siebka, who shared the Butler Eagle Girls' Basketball Player of the Year Award with Union's Tina Lipps after her sophomore season, reinvented herself after that injury and parlayed that into a burgeoning career with Florida Southern.

Until she suffered the same injury on the last day of January this year.

“It was the same exact knee and the same exact feeling,” Siebka said.

Her knee injury occurred just three days after her younger sister, Marissa, had surgery to repair a torn ACL in her knee.

“I was just thinking, 'This can't be happening. This just can't be happening,'” Morgan Siebka said. “I felt so bad for my mom.”

Siebka, though, was looking to reinvent herself again.

She passed on knee surgery, in part because of a summer internship that would require her to hike mountainous terrain as part of her Marine Biology and Environmental Science major.

But another realization struck Siebka most painfully: her basketball career was over.

Not her drive to compete, however.

“I rehabbed the knee by running,” Siebka said. “I was doing linear running and feeling pretty good. The athlete and competitor in me was like if there was someone next to me running, I'd want to beat her, so I thought about joining the cross country team.”

Siebka contacted Ben Martucci, the cross country coach at Florida Southern, about joining the team.

“He was really excited about it,” Siebka said. “He said some of his best runners were athletes who had played other sports. I talked to the trainers and they said they didn't see any reason why not.”

But Siebka's knee surgeon did.

Not only had her ACL failed, but her reconstructed patellar tendon was failing as well.

There was no other option: Siebka again needed reconstructive knee surgery.

“My surgeon said the patellar graft almost never fails,” Siebka said.

Siebka's did, however.

Siebka will need two surgeries to repair her knee. One will be done to secure a new patellar tendon. The second will repair her ACL.

The purpose of these surgeries are not to get Siebka back on the court or the cross country course.

“These surgeries are for the rest of my life,” Siebka said. “It's not a matter of if I'll get arthritis, but when and how long we can hold it off.”

Siebka has come to grips with the fact that her college athletic career is over.

It's not as if she is bored.

She has jumped into her major at full speed, taking heavy course loads. She has taken on internships and summer jobs and she has designs on finishing off her degree in three years so she can join a graduate school program at Duke University.

She plays pickup basketball rarely, but when she does she boasts, “I still got it.”

There's always YMCA leagues, she says, laughing.

“Truly, this past season was one of the greatest I've had in my life, even though it was cut short,” Siebka said. “Coaching-wise and team-wise, I loved every minute of it.

“I just had to accept it,” Siebka added. “It's over, but I am truly thankful for everything I was able to do and the time I had.”