On the way to visit a friend last month, Naje Murray pulled over to the side of the road. She felt lost, but it wasnt because she didnt know the route by heart. Her mom had just called and delivered the news that Murray had been dreading.Murray needed ACL surgery on her right knee, meaning shed miss most, if not all, of her upcoming senior basketball season at St. Marys High School in Stockton, California.I lost it, said Murray, a 5-foot-6 shooting guard on a St. Marys team that has won 57 of its past 58 games. To say I was sobbing is an understatement.Murrays injury occurred on July 3 while playing AAU ball for her Cal Stars team in a tournament in Oregon. Murray went up to block a shot, but her knee buckled immediately after landing.It was a freak accident, said Murray, 17. I fell and I screamed.A parent and two Oregon State University trainers carried Murray off the court, and she saw her knee swell almost immediately.Despite fearing the worst, Murray says she was in denial, strapping on a knee brace and warming up for every game the Cal Stars played in their next tournament, in Tennessee. Even though she was limping around, she got in for a couple of minutes each game.But during a July 18 practice, Murray reinjured her knee. Enough was enough.Murray underwent an MRI on July 21, and the news she received later that day devastated her.She gathered herself enough, however, to send a group text to her high school teammates, letting them know what had happened.At first I thought she was joking, said Jada Moss, a sophomore guard at St. Marys. I didnt want to believe it. I said, Are you serious?She was our shooter. Now were going to have to change a lot of things and work even harder.Tom Gonsalves, who has coached St. Marys to an incredible 119-11 record over the past four years, said Murrays injury is a major loss.Its just sad because she is so passionate about the game, Gonsalves said. Shes a really good 3-point shooter, an outstanding athlete and a phenomenal leader.Shes a tough kid. Even though its difficult for her to handle not playing, there is no question she will rebound from this.Gonsalves paid Murray a huge compliment by comparing her leadership skills to those of former St. Marys and Duke guard Chelsea Gray, who is now playing in the WNBA with the Los Angeles Sparks.Other than Chelsea, we havent had too many kids arrive on campus with Najes ability to lead others, Gonsalves said. Naje knows how to compete. And when you talk to her, its like youre talking to an adult.Moss said Murray is a very caring person. But Murray -- like most teenagers -- also is prone to the occasional goofy decision.Such was the case in March, when the girls went to a Panda Express drive-through. Murray, though, changed her mind and decided she wanted to eat inside the restaurant -- so she backed up, damaging the right rear tire on her white Ford Fusion, which hit the median.That minor issue aside, Murrays choices are usually on point. She has a 4.2 GPA and is interested in studying criminal justice; she is interested in a career as an FBI profiler.Murray grew up rooting for the Los Angeles Lakers. Among college teams, she used to cheer for Stanford, but she said Stanfords style of play is too slow for her now.I put San Diego State No. 1, Murray said, and everyone else who has offered me [a basketball scholarship] is tied for second right now.Murray said she and her father, an assistant football coach and defensive coordinator at a California junior college (San Joaquin Delta College in Stockton), will talk it out and settle on five schools to visit this fall before signing during the November early period.But theres more to Murray than just basketball. Last month, she and her family visited the childhood home of the late civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. The visit to Kings home and former church inspired Murray, whose mother, Natalia, is black, and whose father, Doug, is white. Like a lot of teens, she went to social media to share her thoughts.Shes not shy about sharing such thoughts on the stunning end to her junior season at St. Marys either. Ranked No. 1 in the nation, St. Marys was on the losing end of one of the biggest upsets in California girls basketball history, falling 72-69 to Pinewood (Los Altos, California) in the California Interscholastic Federation Open Division regional semifinals.If we played Pinewood 100 times, we would have beaten them 99, Murray said. But on that night, they were on fire. I think if they had shot backward, they would have made every one.We underrated them, and we deserved to lose.That overconfidence, Murray said, stemmed from the fact that St. Marys had beaten Pinewood by about 25 points in the summer. And St. Marys was missing two of its best players, MiCole Cayton and Kat Tudor, when it won that summer game.Now those stars are off to college -- Cayton to Cal and Tudor to Oregon State -- and Murray, of course, is injured.But St. Marys still has 6-2 forward Aquira DeCosta, the No. 6 prospect in the espnW HoopGurlz rankings for the 2018 class.With Aquiras inside presence and how well Naje shoots outside, we had a good thing going, Gonsalves said. Losing Naje, if indeed we lose her, will impact us quite a lot.Murray hopes St. Marys can capture that feeling it had last season, when the bond among teammates was unbreakable. Not even the final loss broke their friendship.Last year was the best year of basketball Ive ever had, Murray said. We had two superstars who were big-time Pac-12 recruits, and yet we were still this close and tightly connected as a team.We had a lot of hate on us because we were No. 1 in the nation. But it was a cool thing. As soon as we walked into a [road] gym, everyone almost got silent.They knew who we were. We heard them whisper. It blew our heads up a bit -- Im not going to lie. But most of the time, we were like, Hey, were just a bunch of normal teenage girls. St. Marys might be a bit more normal this coming season without Tudor, Cayton and -- temporarily at least -- Murray.But Murray promises she wont abandon her team.I will be there at every practice and at every game, Murray said. Everyone is expecting that St. Marys wont be that good this year. But I told the girls, Hey, we need to dig down deep. Randy Carlyle Jersey . Dusautoir, the former World Player of the Year, sustained a torn bicep playing for Toulouse in the Heineken Cup on Saturday. The flanker, who has played 65 times for France, is expected to be out for up to four months. Markus Naslund Jersey . 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LOUIS -- The Cardinals have purchased the contracts of outfielder Magneuris Sierra, infielders Eliezer Alvarez and Edmundo Sosa and right-hander Rowan Wick and added them to their 40-man roster.Adding them to the roster protects them from the Rule 5 draft.St. Louis also announced left-hander Tim Cooney was claimed off waivers by the Indians, while outfielders Chad Huffman and Todd Cunningham, infielder Wilfredo Tovar, left-handerr Zach Phillips and right-hander Kendry Flores signed minor league contracts that included invites to spring training.ddddddddddddSierra, Sosa and Alvarez were teammates at Class A Peoria this past season, while Wick went 2-0 with a 2.44 ERA in 44 games between Class A Palm Beach and Double-A Springfield. ' ' '