- Michigan
South Lyon East’s Lauren Sciborski gets unexpectedly good news, won’t miss season with back injury
SOUTH LYON — Lauren Sciborski’s back is better.
So now she’s back, making the South Lyon East Cougars better.
The heralded sophomore thought she might miss the entire season with a lower-back injury that had been getting progressively worse over the last few years, until she got unexpectedly pleasant news the day after East’s first action of the regular season.
A bone scan came back looking good, and doctors cleared her to rejoin her teammates.
“Very, very exciting. Today at school, I was like ‘It’s game time! It’s game time!’ Being out for two, two-and-a-half months, not being able to do anything do anything, just be there for the team, it was hard. I loved being there, but now I’m more excited, since I got good news from the doctor, and I’m back playing,” Sciborski said after East’s doubleheader split with Walled Lake Northern on Tuesday. “Yeah, I mean, I went in Thursday (April 11) thinking ‘OK, I gotta come back, see if the bone scan was positive, and I’m just going to have to keep healing.’ It was very, very surprising, and I’m very glad that everything healed properly, and I’m back playing.”
East coach Paul Nieto wasted no time putting Sciborski into the lineup against Northern, albeit down in the No. 6 spot.
“She hadn’t seen live pitching in a while, so we were kind of easing her back,” said Nieto, who was preparing to go through the season without the Northwestern commit. “We were back and forth, like ‘She’s going to play,’ then ‘She’s not going to play.’ Then she’s in. It was a matter of waiting for an MRI, and a doctor’s appointment. Then she had to get cleared by the right doctor. Once all that worked out, then she got cleared, and this is really her first time swinging.”
Sciborski popped out to foul territory her first two at-bats, before lacing a two-run double that was part of East’s four-run rally in the sixth inning, setting up a walk-off win an inning later.
“We did live pitching yesterday (Monday) at practice, and I was sitting there like ‘Hooo, boy. I gotta get back into it,’” she laughed. “It’s just taking baby steps, working back into it … just keep working.”
A starter at third base for the Cougars as a freshman, Sciborski was expecting to slide behind the plate to replace Division 2 all-state catcher Julia Vollmer, who graduated.
Then the plan hit a snag when her back started getting worse.
“I’ve had on-and-off back pain for about three years. It got to the point where I was like ‘This isn’t right.’ Previously, in the summer, I had a game where my legs went numb, and felt really heavy, so I was like ‘OK, something’s not right.’ Then it kind of got better, and I thought ‘Maybe I can get through it.’ Then all of a sudden, when we started going inside for practice, it was just so much. I could barely get the ball back, I couldn’t stand up straight,” she said. “Well, I was doing many things. I was weight-lifting a lot. I was practicing a lot, and I think it was just a lot of overwork, and compression on my lower back.”
Sciborski is committed to Northwestern, and hopes she can catch for the Wildcats, too, even though they’re bringing in another pretty good Michigan product — Clarkston junior catcher Hannah Cady, a first-team all-stater and all-American last season — after next year.
"That’s the hope, but I’m willing to go wherever they need me,” she said.
For now, she’s just glad she’s able to go where the Cougars need her — on the field.
