RANKINGS
EVENTS
I COMMITTED
COLLEGE
ABOUT
The Tennessee Mojo 2021 team led by Coach Brooks Cherry is loaded with talent and has added some strong pieces to make it a favorite at the 18U level next summer.
One of his long-time standouts is 2021 IF/C Jenna Lord, who was ranked as a Top 25 player in the previous 2021 Extra Elite 100 rankings.
Be sure to check in Monday for the kickoff of the FINAL 2021 Extra Elite 100 rankings!
The bad news regarding Jenna, a senior from Trussville, Alabama, who was 1st Team All-State this year for Hewitt High, is she had to have shoulder surgery at the Andrews Clinic in May and was out over four months.
The good news is she has returned to action looking like she hasn’t missed a beat, batting .650 at the recent Alliance Fall Cup (13-for-20) and is currently at a .654 mark (17-for-26) with 10 extra base hits and 16 RBIs.
Her father, Greg Lord, told Extra Inning Softball, “Unfortunately, labrum surgery is becoming more and more common in teenage softball players so I thought it might be of interest to many to hear what she went through to come back.”
We agree and believe there’s a cautionary tale in Jenna’s story as she recaps her experience this summer…
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Softball has always been my way to relax and decompress from anything going on outside the lines, just like it is for most who love the game, but I had to navigate through some adversity where softball wasn’t my escape for a while.
During my junior season playing high school ball I noticed a lot of throwing pain but it was always inconsistent. I’ve had sore shoulders, elbows, knees, and muscles before and I always knew it as a part of the game so I didn’t think too much about it.
I started going to therapy at the beginning of the season just to see if the pain would go away. The physical therapy kept most of my pain down and manageable, but it never went away, just became more inconsistent.
When COVID-19 interrupted our season, I took about a month off doing softball related things before I was planning on getting back into the game—it gave my body and arm a break.
Then when I started throwing again it never got any better from the time off, just worse. The doctor recommended I go get an MRI when the hospitals allowed them to open back up, so April 30 I went and got my MRI.
On May 4, I got my results back and a bad phone call too. A posterior labrum tear that tore about 180 degrees out of the 360 degrees. I had a feeling that this was going to be the case but I didn’t realize how much pain and discomfort I would be in or how much I would miss the game.
My surgery was scheduled for May 12, and, afterwards, I walked out with a big giant sling, loads of bandages, and four anchors in my throwing arm. The next day I went back to physical therapy and my rehab journey began.
The more I came to PT, the more I saw young kids in slings and shoulder exercises and the obvious huge question popped into my head:
“Why are baseball and softball players having so many shoulder problems at such a young age?”
When I went back for my recheck with my surgeon, I asked him this very question and he responded that kids in this generation are being pushed unlike past years… me included.
*** Scroll down to read more about what Jenna learned from her shoulder injury including what she wants to do as a career!