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Madison girls' 6-0 center back from eye injury

Rachel Blevins, of Madison, takes aim as she shoots a foul shot. The Middletown Madison girls basketball team won a Division III state semifinal game, over Ironton High School, by a score of 50 to 43. Madison will play in the state title game on Saturday, in Columbus. Blevins scored 8 points and collected 6 rebounds in the victory.

Ron Alvey Rachel Blevins, of Madison, takes aim as she shoots a foul shot. The Middletown Madison girls basketball team won a Division III state semifinal game, over Ironton High School, by a score of 50 to 43. Madison will play in the state title game on Saturday, in Columbus. Blevins scored 8 points and collected 6 rebounds in the victory.

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By Tom Archdeacon, Staff Writer Updated 12:06 AM Friday, March 19, 2010

Here’s what Rachel Blevins has been told:

“I guess I stumbled a little bit. I looked at my hands — there was blood everywhere — and I just went down. I don’t really remember, but they say I was shaking and then I freaked out and was screaming ’cause I was afraid I wasn’t going to play again.”

Blevins, the starting 6-foot junior center on the unbeaten Middletown Madison High School girls basketball team, was in her physical education class at the school March 5, the day before the district final against Cincinnati Madeira.

Freak accident

People were playing ping-pong and because of a moment’s inattention, she said she walked behind a table where Ryan Thobe, a 6-3 junior on the boys basketball team, was reaching backward for a shot.

“He accidentally caught her with a backhand to the (left) eye,” said Mohawks girls coach John Rossi. “It left a big enough cut along her eyebrow (and inner eye) that you could’ve put your thumb in it.”

Susan Blevins, Rachel’s mom, was at the family home five minutes from the school when she got the call. “I was mopping the kitchen floor and they said, ‘You need to come to school, Rachel’s hurt.’

“When I got there, five teachers came out to meet me. When I got to the gym, Rachel was lying there and there was blood all over.”

And Thobe, Rachel was told, was so shook up, he was white.

Taken to Atrium Medical Center in Middletown, Rachel was found to have a cut on her iris. She got 10 stitches, two on the inside of her eye and eight to close the gash along her brow and eyelid.

When Rossi got to the hospital, he said Rachel “looked like she’d been in a heavyweight fight. When I saw that eye — and heard about the laceration on her eyeball — I didn’t think there’d be any way she’d be able to come back for us.”

Blevins spent the Madeira game at home and last week’s two regional games on the Mohawks bench wearing bulky, cataract sunglasses borrowed from her grandma, Rubie Blevins.

“I wanted to play so bad,” she said. “I’d cry, but it hurt to cry.”

Madison is having a season unlike anything in school history, including making the Mohawks’ first Divisioin III first state tournament ever.

Cleared to play

And then came the good news. Tuesday evening, March 16, another doctor cleared Blevins to play in the Division IV state semifinal against Ironton on Thursday at the Schottenstein Centerand. She was fitted with a pair of red-framed goggles that had special tinted lenses.

While Ally Malott had 18 points, 7 rebounds and four blocked shots and Lindsay Hoskins added 12 points, eight rebounds and four assists in the Mohawks’ 50-43 victory, it was Blevins who had the most impressive stat line.

Coming off the bench, she played just five minutes but had eight points and six rebounds. She did miss three free throws but admitted the basket looked “a little blurry” from 15 feet away.

Afterward she drew praise and teasing from her teammates. As she discussed the freak accident, Hoskins grinned: “I don’t know if I should say it, but it could only happen to her.”

Blevins just shrugged: “I am accident prone. I could trip over air.”

After the game — as she shed her shades and met with her family — you couldn’t help but notice the fresh scar. “I hope it stays,” she said. “I think it’s there for a reason.”

Her dad, Wally Jr., chimed in: “Yeah, every time she looks in the mirror, she can go, ‘Maybe I’ll pay attention.’”

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