Braced for Worst, Edmonds Plays Her Best : Women’s basketball: After two knee surgeries, she helps Cal Poly Pomona to Division II Final Four.

At times, Marcine Edmonds admits, the routine wears a little thin.

Before every practice or game she plays for the Cal Poly Pomona women’s basketball team, the 23-year-old senior has team trainers carefully wrap her right knee. Then she adds a flexible but cumbersome brace.

And for Edmonds, a 6-foot-1 forward who returned this season after having two operations on her knee in less than a year, not a day comes in which she doesn’t feel at least a little pain in her knees. At times, it has been almost unbearable.

But for her, having the opportunity to play one more season has been worth the pain and trouble.

“I think it’s worth it to me, not just for the people at Cal Poly but for the institution of basketball,” she said. “Without basketball, I don’t know if I’d still be in college. Basketball has meant a lot to me in terms of receiving an education.”

Edmonds is hoping to complete her college career on a successful note when Pomona plays host to the NCAA Division II final four tournament tonight and Saturday at Kellogg Gymnasium in Pomona.

The second-ranked Broncos (28-3) will play top-ranked Delta State of Mississippi (30-1) in the semifinals at 8 tonight. The final is scheduled Saturday night at 8.

Edmonds says she has had to live with knee problems for most of her career.

“I always had knee problems,” she said. “It’s just that after my junior year, it got so bad that I had to have surgery. It was really starting to give me problems at the end of my junior year, but I didn’t really give much thought to it at the time.”

She even completed her summer league season with her knees in reasonably good shape. But during preseason practice, in November of 1988, her fortune turned.

“We started conditioning and it was OK, and then the first week that we started practicing I started to have problems,” Edmonds said.

After a doctor determined that Edmonds had torn cartilage in her right knee, she underwent arthroscopic surgery.

“I had the surgery in December, and at the time I was still planning to try to play again (that season),” she said. “But (the operation) wasn’t successful. I started practicing again in January, but I still had the same problem. It just didn’t feel any better.”

Even after completing therapy on her knee, Edmonds said she experienced considerable pain. Finally, in May of last year, she went to another doctor to have her knee examined again, and he found additional torn cartilage.

So Edmonds had it removed last July, and this time the operation was a success.

Still, it was months before Edmonds, who redshirted last season, was in a position to play again.

“He did a real good job on it, but I was pretty much away from basketball the whole summer,” she said. “Then, when the season started, I missed our first couple of (nonconference) games and I finally played a little in the Bronco Classic (last November).”

For Edmonds, it was a major step just to play in a game again.

Although she never doubted that she would play again, Edmonds was not sure if she could be as effective as she was before the injury. An All-Southern Section selection as a senior at Long Beach Poly High, Edmonds made the All-California Collegiate Athletic Assn. second team as a junior at Pomona.

“Even after I had been through rehabilitation and I was playing again, I wondered if I could be as good as I was before,” she said. “But I truly believed that (the second doctor) did a good job on my knee, and if I worked hard I could still come back to play and do a good job.”

Under her doctor’s orders, Edmonds did not play much early in the season.

“When I first came back, they really monitored my play,” she said. “I’d come in for three minutes and sit out five a lot. Besides, I also missed our conditioning program, so I wasn’t in top shape.”

Finally, in December, Edmonds started to re-emerge. She scored 15 points and pulled down 11 rebounds against Weber State on Dec. 13, and added 23 points against Southern Utah State five days later.

“I think that (the layoff) had a lot to do with her confidence level at first,” Coach Darlene May said. “It’s not easy to sit out for that long and then come back and be effective right away.”

Since December, Edmonds has been one of the leading scorers and rebounders for the Broncos.

She is second in scoring with a 13.6 average and second in rebounding with a 6.9 average. She has also received individual honors. Earlier in the month, Edmonds was named to the All-CCAA first team and was an all-tournament selection at both the conference postseason tournament and the Division II West Regional.

Not that May expected anything less.

“I’m not really surprised at all,” May said. “I know she’s quite capable of doing this. She’s done it before.”

The coach said the return of Edmonds gives the Broncos the size in their starting lineup that they didn’t have last season, particularly when 6-2 center Niki Bracken is also on the court.

“The dimension that (Edmonds) brings to the game complements the other players on the team,” May said. “She certainly makes the other players look better. I know she does a lot for Niki’s game.”

All things considered, Edmonds says, her play has been much better than she anticipated.

“I think I’ve progressed and done pretty well when you consider that I had two knee surgeries in about six months,” she said. “So I think that in a lot of ways this has really been my best season. I’ve had to overcome a lot.”

She still is overcoming. She must endure a rigorous therapy regimen to stay in condition to play.

She receives therapy twice a day in the school trainers’ facility to strengthen her knee. Edmonds also undergoes electric stimulation on the knee twice a day and ices it down after each practice, therapy session and game.

“After the second operation, I had to ask myself if it was worth all of the pain and conditioning that I had to go through every day,” Edmonds said. “I asked myself that question a lot. . . . Sometimes it seems like I’m spending my whole day working with my knee. At first, when I had to do all of those things, it was so much of a hassle.”

Edmonds says that the time away from the game heightened her enthusiasm to play again.

“When you get back after sitting out for so long, you’re so hungry to play and contribute again,” she said. “This whole season, I’ve just been so hungry and so determined to show what I can do.”

There is also the added motivation of having an opportunity to play for a national championship.

“Now, being so close to the nationals, I can just feel it,” she said. “I don’t even want to take a week off before I play. I want to go out there now.”

Edmonds is the only player remaining from the 1986 Bronco team that won the Division II title--the last Pomona squad to pull off the feat. In 1987, she played for the Bronco team that lost by two points to New Haven in the Division II title game.

She said the past success made a 88-58 loss to Delta State in the Division II final last year even more difficult for her to accept.

“I didn’t go to Mississippi last year, but when I saw what we did there it really bothered me,” Edmonds said. “I just couldn’t wait until (this season).”