When it happened, nothing else could be heard.
No volleyballs being hit back and forth across the net in practice. No players diving to dig a kill attempt.
No other sound, but the loud, painful scream of Jacqui Seidel after she fell to the floor.
"It was the worst pain I ever felt," the junior setter said. "I knew it immediately, I heard it snap. Some of my teammates heard it snap."
Practice continued because it had to on Nov. 2, 2011. The then 22-3 Cardinals were set to face Western Michigan and Northern Illinois on the road when Seidel tore her anterior cruciate ligament and both menisci in her left knee in practice.
Eventually, silence was all that was left.
"You could hear a pin drop," coach Steve Shondell said, recalling the team's most painful memory of the 2011 season. "Anytime you lose a player to that kind of injury, it's just really devastating for the entire team. It was the toughest day of the year last year."
On Nov. 18, it will be one year since Seidel's surgery. She was cleared in just four and a half months and opened the season as expected as the Cardinals' starting setter. The estimated recovery was four to six months. She was already jumping at full height before preseason started.
Shondell said it's difficult to predict, but it usually takes one or two years to fully recover from an ACL tear.
She didn't wait long to test it out.
In the opening match against Gardner-Webb, Seidel showed all of the athletic ability she showed before her injury, diving into both the scorer's table and press row at separate points in the match. Her injury hasn't made her scared through 19 matches so far - quite the opposite. She's taking advantage of the opportunity.
"I had so much fun, more fun than ever before," Seidel said. "I just try and take a deep breath and just be thankful that I'm back out there, back out with my team and competing."
Senior outside hitter Kara Bates said she's the same player she was before the injury.
"To think Jacqui didn't have a spring and to think she tore her ACL, had surgery ... She's worked her butt off in rehab and practice," Bates said. "No one would know that she suffered that kind of injury."
ROAD TO RECOVERY
It was a long road to get to that point, though.
On the day of the injury, Seidel said she quickly accepted she wouldn't play again that season. All she wanted to know was if she could get into surgery later that night.
"I just wanted to get it over with and move on," she said.
Seidel had her surgery 16 days later on Nov. 18, 2011. For the rest of the 2011 season, all she could concentrate on was rehabilitation.
It wasn't easy.
She became isolated from the team, mostly, because she said she wanted her teammates to remain focused on the rest of the season. She didn't want to get in the way of a possible conference championship.
"I didn't really want to stress my team out with my problems," Seidel said. "I wanted them to stay excited and look forward to everything at the end of the season because they were still a strong team."
Instead, Seidel looked to the training staff for support early on. She asked redshirt freshman Marquita Marshall about her own ACL tear she had in high school.
"I just didn't feel like I had a place on the team because I was so away from them because I wasn't out there," Seidel said.
But the team never fully recovered either after her injury, losing its next three matches. Shondell said Seidel's injury, along with losing middle blocker Mindy Marx in the same practice, was disastrous.
"That week very likely cost us the conference championship, but that happens," Shondell said.
Seidel missed the opportunity to participate alongside her teammates in the NCAA tournament when Ball State was selected as an at-large bid.
But despite the lost season, the pain and the rehab, Seidel said she wouldn't change it. She's learned so much about herself.
"Honestly, it was really hard emotionally for awhile and I think it made me such a stronger player so in the end I wouldn't trade it," she said.
OFF THE COURT
Post-surgery rehab was the hardest part for Seidel, especially being limited in everyday life.
Seidel's roommates, juniors Kylee Baker and Catie Fredrich, were the ones she had to ask for help, even when she didn't want to ask.
Baker recalled a moment before Seidel's surgery where she was trying to make something to eat. She didn't ask for help and instead tried carrying her plate with crutches to the couch.
"You know, she's one of those people that if she can do it herself, she'll do it herself," Baker said.
The plate fell on the floor, Baker said.
But that's just how Seidel is - independent.
"They were there [for me] and they would help me out with little things," Seidel said emotionally. "I haven't talked about it [until now]."
The two played club volleyball together and came from "practically the same town," Baker said. But those few months last year brought the two even closer together.
MORE THAN A GAME
After the season was over and Seidel had gone through rehab and passed her tests, she was back.
And she said she'll never see volleyball the same way again.
"It changed the whole dynamic of the year," Seidel said. "It changed my career. It changed the way I play the game. For a while, it makes you tentative, it makes you hesitant. You can't help but be scared it's going to happen again because it changes the way you play volleyball."
After suffering the injury during Ball State's stretch run last year, she said she knows how important volleyball is to her.
"After missing out at the end last year, it just makes me want this team to go even farther than the past two years," Seidel said. "I don't want to take anything for granted. I want to leave it all on the court.
"I learned that volleyball is a way bigger part of my life than I thought."
