MICHAEL MODAHL (middle) poses with his father, Justin (left), and coach, Brett Flipse (right). –photo by Chris Hendrikse

A handful of basketball players at Christian have scored over 1,000 points, but how many missed an entire season because of injury?

Senior Michal Modahl reached the milestone last Tuesday despite not playing as a junior because he tore his ACL the previous summer.

“Anyone that can score 1,000 points is a special player,” coach Brett Flipse said. “Losing his junior year really made it impressive. I don’t know what he scored his freshman year, but certainly you’re not 100% ready to play varsity as a freshman. He got better as his freshman year went on, then he had a very good sophomore year and we were expecting some amazing things his junior and senior year. Then he blew his knee out. We missed him a lot last year. Him coming back has been a lift to our whole team.”

Modahl’s total is 1,009 after he scored 32 at St. Mary Catholic, and he’s ninth in the state with a scoring average of 28 points.

“It was a great accomplishment and I couldn’t have done it without my teammates and coaches,” Modahl said. “It felt great after missing all of last year.

Modahl also missed his junior year of soccer and Flipse admits he had no idea how he was going to come back.

“He’s a guy who is very athletic and I didn’t know – the best part of his game is inside – how that pounding and running (would go), and I know he played his whole soccer season (this year), but it’s not the same kind of pounding,” he said. “And he favors it yet, a little bit.”

Modahl needs almost 400 more points to become the program’s all-time leader.

“He’s taking this all in stride,” Flipse said. “It’s not too big for him, this wasn’t all about him on Tuesday night. I’m just proud of the way he’s handled himself and fought back from injury. He’s the kid he is today because of it.”