University of South Alabama volleyball defensive specialist Abby Baker remembers the sound of the pop in her shoulder and the intense pain that followed when she dove for a ball during pregame warmups of the Jaguars' 2014 match with Texas-Arlington.

"It hurt really badly, but I thought I just pulled a muscle," she said. "But I could barely lift my arm over my head by the end of the match."

Baker played through the pain the rest of the 2014 season, aided only by treatment throughout the week. Cortisone shots never helped either.

"It actually felt worse after that," she said. 

Baker went to an orthopedic surgeon at the conclusion of the '14 season, because something "did not feel right." An MRI revealed the problem:  a SLAP (Superior Labrum Anterior and Posterior) tear to the labrum of the shoulder – the ring of cartilage which surrounds the shoulder-joint socket – and the biceps tendon.

"With her position on the court, Abby's injury is one you see pretty often," USA athletic trainer Zach Romig said. "With the way she landed on it, it puts a lot of stress on the shoulder. Her injury was pretty solid."

The initial decision was to give the shoulder rest, but Baker said that didn't help. So at the beginning of January 2015, she decided to have surgery to repair the injury.

"We thought it was a really good idea at the time to have the surgery and get it over with, but it took a lot longer than I thought to come back from it," she said. "That was the most frustrating part."

Baker was given a timetable of six-to-nine months of recovery before she could resume any activity following the surgery, but she was cleared in five months and began the rehabilitation process. However, a day in the weight room during rehab ended up costing Baker the 2015 season. 

"I kind of overworked myself that summer to get back for the (2015) season," she said. "I was lifting weights, and I did too much at once and hurt my shoulder again. It just swelled up a lot, and it wouldn't go down. It made a lot of noise – squeaking and popping – and was just really painful."

Baker returned to the doctor just before the season started, thinking she had "torn it again" but she had not. 

"The doctor told me if the swelling didn't go down then it was going to be hard for me to play," she said. "It wouldn't go down, so I had to make the decision to sit out last year. That was really hard."

It wasn't the first time in her playing career that Baker has been forced to sit due to injury. During her senior year of high school, an ankle injury forced her to miss playing time for the first time in her career. 

"I almost blew out my ankle," she said. "I missed the last part of my club season my senior year, which was really hard because we were going to nationals."

But the fact that she had been through the situation before did not make it any easier.

"It was really hard to have to sit and watch last season, because I felt like I could be doing something to make myself better but I wasn't allowed to do anything," Baker said. "With my ankle, I was constantly doing rehab and physical therapy to get it better. But with my shoulder I just had to sit and rest; that was the hardest part."

She resumed rehabilitation in December last year after allowing the shoulder to rest the entire fall after taking a redshirt for 2015. That was when Baker said the road to recovery really began to take shape.

"That was when everything took off," she said. "I got progressively better last spring, and I finally felt 100 percent by the end of the summer. It took about a year-and-a-half to recover."

"I think she was trying to work through everything in the spring, but I give her credit because over the summer she really got her mindset in the right spot and worked hard," USA head coach Amy Hendrichovsky said. "She got herself to where she needed to be in order to help our team as much as she could this season; you can tell with how she is playing right now."

It seems that Baker has fully recovered. She has posted double-figure dig totals in 12 of the Jaguars' 13 matches this season, and was named to the Homewood Suites Classic all-tournament team two weeks ago after recording 54 digs in 11 sets for a 4.91 digs per set average. She recorded 70 digs in 12 sets last weekend for a 5.83 digs per set average in three matches at the Bulldog Invitational in Athens, Ga. Baker tied a career high with 34 digs in the Jags' win over McNeese last Friday, and followed that performance with 13 digs in three sets in a win against Bethune-Cookman on Saturday, and a 23-dig effort in a four-set loss to Georgia. For her efforts, she was named the Sun Belt Conference Defensive Player of the Week this past Monday.

She currently owns the Jaguar career record in digs per set (3.75), and has helped USA get off to the program's best start since the 1980 season.

"The team chemistry has been huge for us," Baker said of this season's early success. "If someone is having a bad game, someone else is right behind them to come pick them up. It's really nice to have that depth; I have never played on a team with this much depth. We all have a mutual trust with each other – it just feels like a family."

Hendrichovsky said Baker "gives a sense of calmness to the court", but what attracted her to the Fayetteville, Ga., native during the recruiting process was something different.

"She had a great work ethic," Hendrichovsky said of Baker. "She was a tough, blue-collar kid."

Baker attributes that toughness to her father, Scott, who she said instilled it in her as a child. "The main thing I learned from my dad was to never settle or give up, and be a really tough, gritty person. My parents are awesome. My mom (Joely) is the one who is always there smiling with good, happy things to say; she is just a sweetheart."

Along with her volleyball and academic duties, Baker added the role of USA Student-Athlete Advisory Committee (SAAC) president for the 2016-17 academic year.

"I wasn't expecting the role of president, but I enjoy it," she said. "I feel like it is helping me grow as a leader in other areas too. I enjoy being able to be around other athletes and help lead them."

But Baker's main focus this year is to win a championship. "That's my main goal," she said. "I want to do whatever I can to help my team succeed. I just want to see how far we have come since last year. I know we have come a long way, but it is going to be awesome to see the results of our hard work and how much tougher and grittier everyone had become; we have gotten much better as a team. It's incredible how much better our blocking has gotten; it's a lot easier for us to play defense behind them. Our setters have improved – every position has depth and people pushing other people to get better."

"Abby is really working hard to do her job and do it to the best of her ability," Hendrichovsky said. "She is definitely working to improve; she has big goals and is improving each week."

Baker, who is a redshirt junior this season and was named to the 2014 Sun Belt Conference Commissioner's List, will receive her bachelor's degree in exercise science from USA this spring and plans on starting a master's degree in either the summer or next fall. 

"I haven't decided if I want to get my master's (degree) in exercise science, because I really want to go to nursing school or physical therapy school; I'm not sure which one. I have always thought about working in physical therapy after I injured my ankle in high school. I fell in love with what they do and how they interact with patients. They get to see their patients progress over time, and I think that is awesome."

For now, Baker and her teammates are continuing to progress on the court. With a clean bill of health for the first time in nearly two years, she is making up for lost time and has her sights set on helping the Jaguars capture the program's first-ever SBC championship come November. 

For more information about South Alabama athletics, check back with www.usajaguars.com, and follow the Jaguars at www.twitter.com/USAJaguarSports. Season tickets for all Jaguar athletic events can be purchased by calling (251) 461-1USA (1872).