The Pleasant Valley girls' tennis team has reason to be optimistic heading into this season. The Bears did, after all, win the Mountain Valley Conference team championship last year.

And for the first time in school history, PV also advanced two players, Madison Olexson and Emily Thek, to the Round of 16 in the District 11 Class AAA Singles' Tournament.While the Bears celebrated unprecedented success on the court, one player was forced to watch and wonder what might have been.Just weeks into the season, Pleasant Valley lost No. 3 singles' player Kara Urland for the year to a torn labrum, an injury that typically takes six-to-eight months of recovery time."I thought that was a really, really tough loss for us," said Pleasant Valley coach Mark Allison. "Being not only one of our top singles' players, but also one of our more experienced players, too, that definitely hurt us. And also the fact that you have to rotate everybody to replace her kind of threw the doubles' lineups off as well."It really has an effect on your team as a whole when you lose somebody like that. We lost a really good player with a lot of experience behind her, and I thought that was a really tough thing for us."The setback was even more devastating for Urland, who suffered the injury while serving in the first set of her match against Pocono Mountain East."I didn't think it was that bad at first so I did play the rest of the match, but not well," she said of the 6-1, 6-0 loss to PM East's Mindy Rinker. "I played the rest of the match, but it was really bad."Not knowing how severe the injury was, Urland went through a battery of tests in addition to two weeks of physical therapy to see if her shoulder was healing or if surgery would be necessary.With her shoulder not progressing, the decision was made for Urland to have surgery in October, which resulted in an even more grueling schedule of treatment afterwards."A couple weeks after surgery, I started physical therapy again and I did that three times a week for six months," Urland noted. "It was a long time."It was also a substantial amount of time to think, not knowing how, or if, she would come back for her senior year."I was just upset that I wasn't going to finish my season," she said of her junior year. "When I found out that I was going to have to get surgery, it just kind of ruined everything."Physical limitations aside, Urland also had to overcome several mental hurdles once she returned to the court."The doctors said that if I could get past the fact that there was stuff in my shoulder, I would be fine," she said of the three anchors that were inserted during her surgery. "My physical therapist was really hard on me. He was pushing me to get better."Since I was out for so long, I definitely had to try that much harder to get back to where I was. I had to do more strengthening exercises, and that changed how I play my game. I'm stronger, and probably more skilled now, because I've done so much to prepare myself and I think it's helped."Urland also spent last spring as the manager for Pleasant Valley's boys' team, an experience she benefited from in several ways."It definitely motivated me. I got to practice with them a lot, and playing with them was good because they're more skilled than me," she said."And I went to states to watch Jon (White) and Jon (Walmach) and that really motivated me. I just told myself that I really wanted to be here (Hershey). It would be nice to get there this year."If she doesn't make it that far, Urland just wants to end her career on a positive, wherever that might be."I just want to make it through the season," she said. "I want to have a good season and end it on a winning note."The expectations of her coach aren't much different."I felt terrible for her last year and I think she really wants to atone for missing that time, especially in her senior year," Allison said. "If she has an injury-free season, it will be a good year for her, there's no doubt about that."