Rapid City, S.D. (KELO) — Girls State Basketball is currently on day two across the state.
Behind the scenes athletic trainers are working one-on-one with these athletes to make sure they are game ready.
Several teams end up traveling with their own athletic trainers, which requires a lot of preparation.
“Whenever it comes to things like ankles or whatever it is, I just plan to have everything that I need and then everything that could go wrong to just kind of prepare. Because catastrophic injury doesn’t happen often but it does happen, so you’ve got to be prepared for anything,” Spearfish HS Athletic Trainer Jessica Harkless said.
The arena staff at The Monument not only help out the athletes but support the other trainers if needed.
“So we’re just kind of support staff for those athletic trainers and whatever they might need, prior to the event or during the event, if they didn’t bring something with them. We just try to facilitate and try to help them in any way that we can,” Monument Health Supervisor for Sports Medicine Shawn Mechling said.
Trainers who travel with their teams already have relationships with the athletes to know what they might need ahead of time.
“It’s beneficial because you can be ready for the type of injury that’s going to happen so if you know if somebody has something going on lower extremity or upper extremity you can just be ready to fully take care of that in the moment,” Mechling said.
“Before we decide what’s going to happen and if we can get them back and hopefully what we need to do next to get them back in the game. So you just have to kind of communicate pretty well and just have them sit down and maybe take a minute to evaluate what’s going on,” Harkless said.
Despite many athletic trainers all being in one location, they all agree that the main goal is the care and safety of all athletes competing.
