Three games into last season, it looked like then-senior forward Sara Jordan would end her Georgetown career with yet another stellar season, when a knee injury sidelined her for the rest of the year. Jordan was a captain, a preseason all-Big East selection and had already notched two goals and an assist when her right knee gave out on her.

“Right when it happened I knew I had torn my ACL,” Jordan said. “I knew my season was over. I thought my career was over. I was just running up the field and my knee just kind of buckled and I tore my ACL and MCL.”

Jordan, who had the misfortune of tearing her left ACL in high school, was all too experienced in ACL rehab. But that did not make the process any easier, nor did it make watching her teammates practice and play any less painful.

“ACL injuries are hard physically and mentally,” Jordan said. “You have to put in a ton of work with rehab and it’s just kind of a really slow process. You measure your progress in months. . It was hard to watch practice every day, but it just made me hungrier to come back.”

In December, the NCAA ruled that Jordan could return to the Hoyas for one final year, allaying her concerns that her career might have ended with one twist of her knee. Jordan, who is a graduate student and plans to finish her master’s degree in government in December, still does not think she has reached her pre-injury levels of performance.

“I feel fitness-wise I’m 100 percent, [but] playing-wise I don’t feel 100 percent,” Jordan said. “Each game I feel better, but I still don’t feel like I’ve been playing my best . I’m still having problems with my MCL every now and then.”

The Hoyas as a whole have started to hit their stride recently and, not coincidentally, Jordan has logged seven points over the past three games on two goals and three assists. With her recent scoring burst, Jordan became Georgetown’s all-time assist leader, and she is two goals away from being the all-time goal-scorer as well. Despite her success, Jordan is not letting anything get to her head.

“Having to come back from an injury [last year], it means more to me,” Jordan said of her assists record. “But in the long run, it’s just an individual record.”

As gaudy as Jordan’s statistics are, her impact on the Hoyas cannot be measured just by numbers. Head Coach Dave Nolan is well aware of the intangibles that Jordan brings to the table, and he does not hesitate to heap praise on his captain.

“Sara is one of those players that gets the game – she understands the game,” Nolan said. “She is one of those players that, in big-time situations, you want the ball at her feet because you know invariably that she is going to make the right decisions.”

Although his team performed admirably in Jordan’s absence last year, Nolan knows that the Hoyas sorely missed her leadership down the stretch. Her intensity does not manifest itself in wild, emotional displays – but Nolan can still see the impact she has on her teammates when she is on the field.

“[Jordan] is a kid that leads by example on the field, she’s not a yeller or a screamer,” Nolan said. “She just brings that little bit of intensity, and that’s how she leads.”

That intensity cuts both ways, and Jordan acknowledges that her mental game is not back to where it needs to be, as a result of the frustration that comes with coming back from a serious knee injury. Nolan knew that his star forward was likely to expect too much of herself early on, and he was careful to put things in perspective for Jordan.

“[Jordan] is probably her own biggest critic,” Nolan said. “Earlier in the year in particular she was being too hard on herself, considering she hadn’t played at all last year and pretty much most of the spring.”

As Jordan continues to rediscover her pre-injury form, she is thrilled to be able to contribute to and lead a team that has a chance to make a deep postseason run.

“[This is] by far the most talented team we’ve had at Georgetown,” she said.

If she continues her recent progression, the Hoyas should have no problem returning to the NCAA tournament -something that would help Jordan finish her Georgetown career in style.”