SLIPPERY ROCK — Fighting the odds is nothing new for Kara Spagnola.

The 5-foot-2 redshirt sophomore guard, who found herself sitting at the end of the bench for the Slippery Rock University women's basketball team last year, is out with a torn ACL and meniscus this season.

No one expected the 2003 Seneca Valley graduate to be playing Division II basketball anyway.

Spagnola averaged only 6.6 points per game her senior year in high school, never scoring more than 13 points in any one game. She never even made third team All-Butler County as a high school player.

Yet she signed on to play at Division III John Carroll University, only to leave after her redshirt freshman year.

"I wasn't happy there," Spagnola said. "I wanted to go to a bigger school. I wanted to play against better competition."

At 5-2, finding bigger competition wasn't too difficult.

"I've always been the smallest player wherever I've been," Spagnola said. "I'm used to that."

She enrolled at Slippery Rock last year and made The Rock women's basketball team as a walk-on.

Her playing time amounted to an average of 2.8 minutes over five games. She scored two points, had three assists and three rebounds.

"I'm 5-foot-5 and I'm considered small for this level," SRU senior point guard Amber McFeely said. "Kara's three inches shorter than I am.

"I admire her tenacity, her determination. She really wants to play."

Only right now, she can't.

The day after Thanksgiving, Spagnola was driving for a layup in practice and a teammate hit her from the side. Spagnola landed awkwardly and her knee paid the price.

Now, she faces extensive rehabilitation just to be healthy enough to make next year's team.

In the meantime, she's charting statistics, again sitting at the end of The Rock bench.

"We decided to put her to work," SRU coach Laurel Heilman said. "Kara has that point guard mentality. She has tremendous knowledge of the game."

During halftime of a recent Rock win at Lock Haven, Spagnola suggested to Heilman that she switch out of a zone defense.

"Their big players inside were hurting us," Spagnola said.

Heilman heeded the advice and SRU rallied to victory.

"Kara has some coaching qualities in her," Heilman said. "If it's something she wants to pursue, I think it can happen for her."

It is something she wants to pursue, but down the road.

Spagnola doesn't believe she's finished playing yet.

"When I hurt my knee, I thought long and hard about quitting," she admitted. "All the years I played basketball, I had never gotten hurt. Maybe the injury was a signal to me that that was enough.

"Then I sat around watching practice. … I missed it right away. I knew I wanted to come back."

McFeely isn't surprised Spagnola is still hanging around.

"I can tell she loves the game," McFeely said. "Watching someone getting her knee torn apart — I wouldn't wish that on my worst enemy.

"Once it happens, a player has two choices. Give it up or rehab it and come back stronger than ever."

Spagnola wants to do more than come back. She wants to start for The Rock before she graduates.

"I know it's a long shot," Spagnola said. "Some people think I'm crazy. But I've always had the odds against me in basketball, ever since I first started playing."

When Spagnola is finished with basketball, her ultimate goal is to coach the girls team at Seneca Valley.

"That's where I started," she said. "That's where I'd like to end up."