When Belinda Drake (right) laid flat on her back at halfcourt with 1:40 left in the third quarter in last Saturday’s sectional championship game against East Chicago Central, she thought it was all over.

No more game.

No more season.

No more high school career for the West Side senior guard.

“I thought that was it. I didn’t think I could stand up,” she said. “Then I thought, 'I gotta get back in there.’ ”

When Drake did return for the final quarter, all she did was hit the game-winning 3-pointer to send the Cougars to this Saturday’s Class 4A Valparaiso Regional.

“She just hates to lose,” said West Side coach Rod Fisher of his 5-foot-4 catalyst. “Whether it’s basketball or marbles or dice, it doesn’t matter. She’s one of the scrappiest players I’ve ever known.”

But that doesn’t mean she doesn’t feel any pain from the back injury that resulted in her being carried off the court the night before after a victory over Lake Central.

She plays 100 percent on every play, so it’s no surprise that this isn’t Drake’s only injury setback of the season. In the first East Chicago game on Jan. 8, she broke her toe and had to spend some time away from the court.

“Coach made me take off a week and a half,” Drake said. “I just love having the ball in my hands.”

It’s just another injury to weigh on Fisher’s mind and put more pressure on his squad that was deep at the beginning of the season.

Along with Drake, senior starting center Karima Davies missed practice on Monday to get treatment on an injury of her own.

“It’s not quite as bad as (Drake’s), but I’m still hurting,” said Davies as she walked into Dr. James Dye’s office on Grant Street in Gary.

“They come in here late a lot of times and just expect us to fix them,” said Dye, the Gary city medical director for all of the school athletic teams.

Michelle Hamblin joined the pair of teammates at Dye’s therapy and rehabilitation facility. The junior forward tore her ACL in the championship game of the Gary Holiday Tournament.

She was relegated to sitting on an elevated table, filling her role as another assistant coach by reading the scouting report for South Bend Washington.

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West Side isn’t the only area team remaining that has fought through injuries to prominent players this season.

Four of the regional participants on Saturday have dealt with either the temporary or permanent loss of an important cog in the team’s success this season.

A familiar foe for the Cougars at this level of the postseason is Valparaiso, which will be facing Elkhart Memorial in the second game of the Class 4A bracket.

The Vikings got their dose of bad news early in the season when starting power forward Lindsay Humes went down with a torn ACL in the third game against Carmel.

“I knew right away she was done,” said assistant coach and school athletic trainer Kathy Levandoski. “It happened so early in the season, we had to make adjustments right away. We definitely had to switch plans a little bit.”

Humes was Valpo’s leading scorer last season as a sophomore and started right where she left off with 14 points against Munster in the season-opener, and 11 points versus Lafayette Jefferson.

“It wasn’t just her scoring, but also her defense, her leadership,” Levandoski added.

The starting lineup at the beginning of the season for the Vikings had Lindsay and her sophomore sister, Erica, starting together.

Instead, Erica and Breanne Gustke were the starting forwards and have stepped in admirably for Lindsay. Both averaged more than seven points and three rebounds per game. Erica also averages close to three assists per game in a balanced Valpo offense.

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When Ali Roper went down with a torn ACL for Wheeler, the Bearcats were 14-3 and well on their way to their first Lake Athletic Conference Blue title.

She was the Bearcats’ second-leading scorer at 12.9 per game, as well as posting 4.6 rebounds, two steals and two assists per game and shooting 30 percent from 3-point range.

They’ve won six straight games since that contest at Bishop Noll, but it hasn’t been easy for the junior to sit and watch her teammates capture the school’s first girls basketball sectional title.

“I get more nervous on the bench watching than when I’m in the game,” said Roper, who sat in a wheelchair next to the bench during Wheeler’s 52-50 double-overtime victory over Boone Grove in the Class 2A Hanover Central Sectional championship.

“I think I had more tears too because I was so happy for them and sad because I couldn’t be out there.”

Just don’t tell her doctor she was at the game.

Roper had surgery on her knee only three days earlier. She was advised to rest in bed for a week.

“I sat in the bleachers for part of the game and stood up a couple times to cheer,” she said. “My mom said I had to sit down. She wasn’t going to let me go to the game but I told her I couldn’t miss this one.”

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It’s been more than one player relegated to sitting on the bench because of injury for Whiting.

The Oilers have lost four of their top seven players in the rotation for some extended period of time during the season, while two other main players have played through pain much of the campaign.

Starters Brittany Malkowski and Jessica Sabol have both been lost since around Christmas while their first player off the bench, Ashley Oswald, tore knee ligaments in a game against Griffith on Jan. 20.

The Oilers star, Becca Papach, hurt her elbow against Morton in early January, but has played through the injury. So has Laura Simunic who has had her shoulder pop out on more than one occasion. Gabby Cardenas missed two weeks with an ankle sprain.

“We’ve been a rag-tag team,” said Whiting coach Joe Pokraka. “Everybody’s stepping up trying to fill the roles of those players. It’s been an interesting season.”

Malowski has had the worst luck of all the Oilers. After fracturing her foot early in the season, she was ready come back after the Christmas break.

But during vacation, she fell off a scooter and broke her arm. More than 12 points per game were lost.

Stepping up for the Oilers has been Abby Gazda, who has moved in to the starting lineup, and Gerica Arroyo, who started the season on junior varsity.

Steve T. Gorches can be reached at 648-3141 or by e-mail at sgorches@post-trib.com.