Barely a third of the way into her junior season, Da’Sha McGloster heard the dreaded pop of an anterior cruciate ligament and saw her basketball career flash before her eyes.

The injury cost the Warren Central forward the rest of that season, but she soon became determined not to go out quietly. Hard work and rehab allowed her to get back on the court in time for this season and she did well enough to achieve her ultimate goal of earning a chance to play college basketball.

McGloster signed with Northeast Mississippi Community College on Wednesday, completing her comeback from what could have been a career-ending injury.

“All glory goes to God. Without Him, I wouldn’t have gotten this,” McGloster said. “I’ve been through injuries and rehab, and coming back and nobody would have thought I’d come back from an injury the way I did. My slogan this year was ‘Back like I never left,’ because I wasn’t going to let that ACL injury tear me down or stop me from getting to the goals that I wanted, which was to play college ball.”

McGloster is the third member of Warren Central’s girls’ basketball team to sign with a college program this school year.

Center Amber Gaston signed with Florida Atlantic in September, and point guard T.T. Sims with Holmes Community College last week. A fourth, guard Dee Dee Caldwell, plans to sign with Northeast Mississippi next week.

The Lady Vikes’ senior class won 78 games in four full varsity seasons and helped elevate the program back to state championship contender status. McGloster said she’s been proud to be a part of it.

“It’s great. We’ve been working hard since seventh, eighth grade. It’s just a great feeling to know that we’ve come this far, being that we were moved up from eighth to ninth grade and we were learning,” McGloster said. “The trials we went through to get where we were our senior year, and how we played together, it’s great to know most of us are going on to the next level and see that hard work come to fruition.”

McGloster was one of the less-heralded players of this senior class. The 5-foot-9 forward averaged 5.0 points and 1.8 rebounds and started most of the team’s games as a sophomore, then suffered a torn ACL just eight games into her junior year.

She came back this season in mostly a reserve role to once again average 5.0 points, 2.4 rebounds and 1.2 steals per game.

Knowing she needed to promote herself to get noticed by colleges and make up for her missing junior season, McGloster started an aggressive recruiting campaign.

“I was just doing anything I could do to get my game noticed by a college team. I was sending them tape and emails. Anything I could get them noticing my game and coming to games,” she said.

She helped by creating more highlights on the court. McGloster had three double-doubles this season, including a 10 point, 10 rebound performance in a 64-58 loss to Pearl in the Class 6A quarterfinals.

It all paid off. She received offers from Northeast Mississippi and East Central Community College, as well as Division III programs Birmingham Southern and Millsaps.

McGloster said she picked Northeast because it meshed well with her game. She expects to see time at both the small and power forward positions.

“It just felt like home to me. It felt like somewhere I could see myself playing, with great coaches. They play a similar style to how we play here, so I’m familiar with how they play and how they run their pace,” McGloster said. “The way that they play, everybody gets touches. Everybody is implemented into the offense. That was a big part of why I chose them.”

More than anything, McGloster said she was happy to have an opportunity to keep playing and fulfill a lifelong goal.

“It’s just a wonderful feeling, because I’ve been working hard for this,” she said. “This is something I’ve wanted since I was little.”