No stopping her
Sami Archer has slammed her head on the basketball floor several times.
She's received a knee to the base of her skull.
She's had an elbow to the nose.
Five concussions later, the Knoch senior is still fighting.
Only now, it's in a different sport.
“My doctor said, 'Let's think about not playing basketball,'” Archer said, chuckling.
Sage advice, but a suggestion that was tough for Archer to accept.
Basketball had been her favorite sport for as long as she could remember and it pained her this winter to not be able to play it because of her latest head injury during an open gym in October.
She was flung to the floor, head crashing against the hardwood.
Her head hurt. She felt nauseous. She was dizzy.
Each one of her concussions have been different. This one was perhaps the worst — even more concerning than her first, which occurred January of 2016 and forced her to miss two weeks of school.
Still, Archer was determined to play this season for the Knights.
“The whole time I was recovering I was thinking about it and I really wanted to play,” Archer said. “I started feeling better.”
At the end of December she was cleared to play, but during the first scrimmage, she began experience post-concussion symptoms again.
“Not even five minutes in I got a headache,” Archer said. “So, I went back to the doctor and she said, 'Yeah, I don't think you're actually ready yet. And so we kind of knew at that point I was done for the season.”
Archer, though, has developed into a standout defender for the Knoch girls lacrosse team and will be playing in college at Elizabethtown College.After 20 weeks, Archer is finally feeling no ill-effects from her last concussion and was cleared by her doctor to play lacrosse.Knoch opens at home against Seneca Valley Friday.“The doctor said I seem to have no problems playing lacrosse,” Archer said.Archer never thought lacrosse was going to be the sport she would play at the next level.“Even when I started getting more serious with lacrosse, I didn't know if I was good enough,” Archer said. “But then as I kept doing travel and things like that and talking to my friends who were thinking about playing in college, I was like, 'Oh, that sounds exciting.' Maybe.”Elizabethtown women's lacrosse coach Danielle Taylor reached out to Archer and wooed her to come play for the Blue Jays.Now Archer is just looking forward to playing for Knoch.Last season was wiped out because of COVID-19.“It's hard to tell what's going to happen this season because we've had a long gap in between playing,” Archer said. “It's kind of hard not seeing the girls play last year. But we look really good. We have a lot of knew girls who came out and they've been working really hard at practice. So, it's going to be exciting to see how this year turns out.”Archer also hopes to get through it unscathed.Her last two concussions came within the last year.She doesn't want to have to go through again what she went through this basketball season.Watching from the wings.“There were definitely a lot of nights I came home crying because I wish I could get on the court with the girls because I've put in a lot of hard work,” Archer said. “It was kind of hard knowing that I couldn't be physically out there with them. But I always tried to talk on the sidelines and I was trying to be there for the girls.”Archer said she is trying not to worry about concussion No. 6.“It's definitely something that's in the back of my mind,” Archer said. “If I think about it too much, I'll probably end up causing myself to get hurt.”
