As the leading scorers for Cooperstown’s Class C state championship team, seniors Miles Nelen and Jackson Crisman certainly played a huge part in their team’s success. However, both of them had to overcome serious injuries to make the championship run, and anyone who saw Crisman in September had to have concerns if he would make it back for basketball season.
Crisman, the Hawkeyes center/forward whose off-balance, buzzer beating three-point shot gave the Hawkeyes a 66-64 semifinal win against Lyons on Saturday, March 21 in Binghamton, was on crutches in September. He suffered an avulsion fracture in his right hip early in soccer season, on Sept. 5.
The injury is caused when a tendon or ligament pulls two pieces of bone away from one another.
“It took a lot of work, a lot of physical therapy and recovery, working on those legs to strengthen them up,” Crisman said in an interview after his game-winning shot.
Nelen, who led his team and all boys basketball teams in the region in points scored this season, with 710 points in 27 games, missed his entire sophomore season because of Osteochondritis Dissecans in his right elbow. An injury common for baseball pitchers and young gymnasts, it is also a separation of the bones.
Instead of playing his sophomore year, Nelen had surgery in the middle of it, in early 2024. He did nearly a year of rehab and follow-up care at Boston Children’s Hospital before getting cleared to play just before the 2024-2025 season began.
“Coming back from my injury, this is all I thought of,” Nelen said Sunday after the state championship win over Berne-Knox-Westerlo, 52-43. “I remember all the teams that killed us my sophomore year. I used that as motivation.”
Last year, when he was named The Daily Star’s boys basketball player of the year, Nelen said overcoming his injury included getting his shot back.
“The big thing was getting my jump shot back to where it was before,” he said. “And also figuring out how to win. All that matters to me, really, is winning. I don’t really care about points or anything like that. I just care about how to get my teammates points, how to make them happy and how to get wins.”
Cooperstown went 11-10 in 2023-24 without Nelen, who was named the Class C State Tournament MVP on Sunday. After his return, it has gone 51-1, with two Section III Class C titles, plus this year’s regional and state titles. The Hawkeyes were 27-0 this season. Of Nelen’s career 1,440 varsity points, he scored 1,267 since his return.
Nelen’s return from injury came two years ago and his status this season was never in doubt.
For Crisman, who was named to the Class C All-Tournament Team, it was a different story. The injury caused severe pain, and the initial prognosis was bleak about him being able to return for basketball season. His friends on the sports teams pitched in to help lift his spirits, showing up for a surprise birthday party Sept. 10, and cheering him on during his rehab. They drove him to senior sunrise and to other school events and kept him company when his parents had work or other games to attend.
The pain went away and the rehab was successful. Nine weeks after the injury, Crisman was back on the court. Three months after the injury, Dec. 4, he was in the starting lineup for Cooperstown against Utica Academy of Science, recording his first double double of the season, with 19 points and 18 rebounds. For the season, he had 478 points and 319 rebounds, for an average of 17.7 points and 11.8 rebounds per game.
Cooperstown Coach John Lambert said he felt bad for his players when they got hurt. However, given how competitive both players are on the court, he said he wasn’t surprised to see them return and become team leaders this season.
With Crisman, “I learned his injury wasn’t as severe as I was originally told, so l wasn’t worried about it at all for hoops because it happened so early in September,” Lambert said. “Obviously, I eased him into hoops. We limited his running and physical contact. I had many conversations with him that the games in December weren’t my priority for us, as we wanted to be full strength in February and March.
“As for Miles, I was heartbroken for him when he told me he wouldn’t be able to play his sophomore year, because he and (my son) Charlie were close and looking forward to building on that first year they played together,” Lambert said. “I knew Miles would come back, so I never worried about his future career at the time. He wasn’t going to let anything slow him down.”
In Sunday’s championship game, Nelen led all scorers with 20 points, while Crisman had 13 points and eight rebounds. In Saturday’s semifinal, Nelen scored a game-high 26 points, while Crisman had 16 points, including the game winner, and eight rebounds.
Neither player has decided on his college path, yet. For Nelen, it will include basketball. Crisman is reportedly undecided if his playing career will end with the state championship. However, given what they have already accomplished, and the obstacles they overcame to get to a state title, it wouldn’t surprise anyone in Cooperstown to see Nelen and Crisman have more successes, on court and in life.