Scott Salisbury, last year's runner-up for Pacific West Conference Player of the Year, is likely out for the season after suffering a fractured larynx Feb. 12 against Hawaii Pacific. Injury puts Salisbury
out for the seasonBy Jerry Campany
jcampany@starbulletin.comSalisbury, who is the only player in the top 10 in the PacWest in 10 statistical categories, took an inadvertent elbow three minutes in the team's overtime win, but finished the game with 16 points and nine rebounds. He complained of pain after the game and had an MRI scheduled.
"He said he thought he was going to black out," Seasiders coach Ken Wagner said. "He didn't, so he figured he would play through it. That is Scott; if there is a game, he wants to play."
Salisbury has never missed a game in his collegiate career, and his streak of consecutive appearances will end at 98, second longest in school history behind Nnamdi Okonkwo's 119.
Salisbury actually practiced Tuesday while waiting for results of the MRI, and was on his way to practice Wednesday when his doctor called and told him not to practice. His activity between the injury and the time he found out shouldn't take away from the severity of it though, Wagner said.
"It is a situation where if he got hit again it would be life threatening," Wagner said. "I have called some professional team doctors, top people that I know from clinics in the East, and they all say it is not worth the risk."
The Seasiders explored the option of finding a brace for him to play with, but that turned out to be too risky as well. Salisbury is scheduled to have surgery Thursday. The team is counting him as out for the rest of the season whether the surgery goes well or not.
The Seasiders will play second-place Hawaii-Hilo tonight and tomorrow night with the conference title likely on the line.
"It would be awfully tough to have one person replace him, we will have to ask three or four guys to step up," Wagner said. "I don't think depth is running in lots of numbers, real depth is replacing a great player. We will see."