JTV Sports Quick Focus: Bargesser Returns to Track Five Months After ACL Injury

By Jeff Steers
JTV Sports

(May 7, 2022 8:26 AM) It is hard to keep a champion down.

Especially in his/her last year in high school.

Grass Lake High School senior Lexus Bargesser injured her ACL, Meniscus, and sprained a few things in her left knee during the first basketball game of the 2021-2022 season. 

The seven-time state champion – two team championships and five individual titles – wasn’t about to lose her entire senior season to a knee injury.

Earlier in the week, she returned to run the 400-meter dash in 1 minute, 2 seconds in winning a tri-meet. She backed that up by winning the 400-meter event in nearly an identical time on Friday night at the Stockbridge Invitational.

The Grass Lake senior started running approximately a month after surgery.

“I was determined to get something out of my senior year,” Bargesser said Friday night. “My doctors worked with me and encouraged me to do this … and told me I could.

“That was my goal.”

Bargesser injured her knee in a freak accident in the Warriors’ first basketball game of the season. The defending state champions in Division 3 basketball missed the play of Bargesser – an Indiana University signee in women’s basketball.

“I don’t know why it (the injury) happened,” Bargesser said. “I don’t consider this injury a setback … something to get me stronger and better.

“My Indiana coaches have been supportive.”

Bargesser said it was hard to watch others play basketball, knowing that her senior season was lost. 

“The biggest thing for me is (what) God has led me to … he made it so I can go out and run this season,” Bargesser said. 

Bargesser and her brother, Brennen, electrified the Michigan High School Athletic Association Division 3 state track and field finals last year by each winning the 100-, 200-, and 400-meter dash events. Both Grass Lake teams won state team titles in the process.

Bargesser put the world on notice by winning the 100-meter and 200-meter dash events at the state finals as a freshman.

The senior said her goals are to work on the 400 and hopefully have a good day at states.