INDIANAPOLIS — Hadley Crosier struggled to hide her emotions on the Lanesville bench. The junior guard was in tears, visibly shaken; bags of ice tightly wrapped around her right knee. Crosier's knee gave out late in the first quarter, ending her Class A state championship game appearance after only seven minutes and sidelining her for the foreseeable future.

"I found myself feeling sorry for myself," an emotional Crosier said following the defending state champion Eagles' 51-43 win over Marquette Catholic.

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"I was like, these girls are doing this and I just — I can't think about me, because this is for everybody," she continued as teammate Ava Kerr and coach Angie Hinton silently consoled her. "This is for our community. I went down and I probably won't be back for a while, but these girls — I just couldn't be any more proud of them and what they did."

Crosier was smiling and even cracked a couple jokes during the postgame news conference, but her voice began quivering as she recounted what happened afterwards. She was planning to attack the basket and hopefully draw a foul, but felt her knee give out as she came to a jump stop and heard the dreaded pop. "I knew it was pretty bad."

Without missing a beat, junior Shelby Allen chimed in: "If you put us together, we make one good person," she quipped, quickly bringing a smile back to her teammate's face.

Allen understands the importance of positivity when it comes to rehabbing from this type of injury. The 6-1 junior tore her ACL and meniscus two weeks after Lanesville's 2023 championship run and did not return until late December.

"I'm ready to help her through it," said Allen, who shares the same class schedule with Crosier. "On the bench, I told her, 'It's going to hurt really bad, but you're going to get through it. It'll be fine. Just don't give up.'"

Added Crosier: "Walking alongside Shelby while she went through this, I know she'll be there for me and can help me through it."

That the Eagles successfully defended their state crown without Crosier — the team's leading scorer and the head of their suffocating defense — is a feat unto itself, with 5-7 junior guard Hylton Brumley stepping in at point guard and going turnover-free over the final three quarters (Crosier owes her hotel roommate crab, for the record).

"We've taken a lot of hits this year. None bigger than the one we took today," coach Angie Hinton said. "But the kids stepped up. This kid besides me (Brumley), she carried a big load. … She was huge for us."

Crosier's response is worth celebrating, as well. She found herself asking "why" as she was helped off the floor and into the Lanesville locker room. Crosier had been through "something terrible," but she was able to maintain perspective, finding solace in how her teammates were playing for her. The Eagles were there for their community, Crosier said, and "I knew they were going to win no matter what."

That community, by the way, deserves credit, too. The outpouring of support for their future Indiana All-Star (she's a virtual lock) was immediate, with the purple-packed corner of Gainbridge Fieldhouse chanting "Hadley" as she was helped off the floor, then again as she returned to the bench on crutches. Even Indiana Fever star Aliyah Boston sought out Crosier after the game to make sure she was OK and congratulate her on the team's second consecutive state title.

Crosier (and most of her teammates and coaches) broke down once more as the final seconds ticked off the clock and the celebration ensued, with the senior embraced by her coaches and teammates, who wasted almost no time filing over to celebrate with her on the bench, with Hinton letting Crosier know how proud of her she was and offering a few words of encouragement: You're going to be OK. You're going to be back out there.

"She'll be back," Hinton said. "We have a great trainer (Dr. Vince Stilger) and he'll have her working out today when we get home. He'll be working with her and the type of kid she is, she'll be back. She'll be back better and stronger. We all have faith in that."

Follow Brian Haenchen on Twitter at @Brian_Haenchen.

This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: IHSAA girls basketball: Lanesville's Hadley Crosier suffers knee injury