SLIPPERY ROCK — Sedona Campbell doesn't wear a brace on her surgically repaired right knee.

To her, it was a shackle — something that dogged her and brought back the painful memories of her injury and what she went through to overcome it.

So Campbell, a 5-foot-11 junior center for the Slippery Rock High girls basketball team, shed it.

No more brace.

No more worries.

“I let that part of me go and I play like it never happened,” Campbell said. “Once I took the brace off, it wasn't there to remind me I had done it.”

Campbell has played well since freeing herself.

The injury, though, wiped out her sophomore season after a promising freshman campaign.

Campbell came up big in one of the Rockets' biggest games in 2013-14 when she scored 19 points in a District 10 Class AAA playoff game against Harbor Creek.

A few months later — on June 25, 2014 — she suffered a torn ACL and damage to her meniscus at the Girard team camp.

Surgery on Aug. 5 and a long rehab followed.

Campbell was back on the floor June 25 of last year at the Gannon team camp. It was her first action and she let the spectre of the injury affect her.

“This summer it bothered me a little more, especially on that one-year anniversary of tearing it,” Campbell said. “I played that day and probably didn't handle it very well. I was a little upset and didn't play my best. I definitely let it get to me that day. I was just happy it was the offseason and not a conference game.”

That was when Campbell decided she needed to move past the mental aspect of her injury.

Her mind freed, Campbell has turned in some big games for Slippery Rock this season.

In her first game back since February of 2014, Campbell scored 26 points against Mars.

She also had a 22-point performance against Keystone Oaks and opened the region schedule with 11 points against Meadville.

Campbell is leading the Rockets in scoring at 10.3 points per game. She is also the team leader in rebounds at 4.8 per game.

Campbell said she had no expectations of how she would play this season.

“I just wanted to do my best to get back and be as strong as I could be,” she said. “I had no idea what I would be like.”

She just knew anything was better than what she went through last season.

Watching.

Not being able to play.

“It was frustrating, especially in the important games,” Campbell said. “But you just kind of look to your teammates to help because they will always be there for you.”

Slippery Rock coach John Tabisz said Campbell will only get better as the season progresses.

“She's at 100 percent physically,” Tabisz said. “But as far as the flow of the game, not yet. She's a big presence inside. She's over the knee.”

The Rockets are 2-0 in the region after a big win over rival Grove City Thursday and have a difficult road game at Oil City tonight.

It will be only the third region game for Campbell in nearly two years.

“Definitely just taking all that time off, I'm a little rusty,” she said. “Now I'm coming into the games that really matter and I need to be at my best.”