HANOVER — Stella Galanes feared the worst as soon as she hit the floor.

Hanover High’s senior point guard, committed to play women’s basketball at Tufts University, had led the Bears to the NHIAA Division II title last winter. Galanes averaged 18.6 points per game, earning a spot on the all-division first team, as Hanover went 21-0 against in-state foes with an average margin of victory of 30 points.

But now, Galanes was lying on the court in Londonderry at the New Hampshire Sportspage Preseason Jamboree, having landed awkwardly after going up for a contested layup. Two days later, tests confirmed Galanes’ worries — she had torn her ACL and would miss her entire senior season.

“It’s pretty jarring for any basketball player when you go down on the floor, because that’s the worst-case scenario,” Galanes said. “It was a standard play that happens all the time; you go up in the air, you get hit, you land on one leg, but this time I felt my knee give out. Deep down, I knew, and I think a lot of my teammates knew too, because they were pretty upset.

“I haven’t been injured ever really before, so people typically know when I go down, it’s not a great thing.”

All of a sudden, the Bears’ prospects for the upcoming season were thrown into uncertainty. Hanover had graduated all-state honorees Melissa Whitmore and Jane Lackley, and its chances to repeat had seemed to hinge largely on Galanes, who reached 1,000 career points during last year’s postseason. With their centerpiece out, every member of the roster saw her role change to some extent.

Junior Sydney McLaughlin, the daughter of Dartmouth College men’s basketball head coach David McLaughlin, had perhaps the biggest change as she took on starting point guard duties. McLaughlin had to shift her mindset to become more of a score-first guard, like Galanes, to make up for the offensive production the Bears were missing.

“Having to become a real scoring threat, that’s not really my nature,” McLaughlin said. “(Galanes) has really helped me try and get that mentality of scoring and going to the hoop and trying to build my confidence.”

Galanes is still very much a part of the team, essentially becoming an extra member of Hanover’s coaching staff. She underwent surgery 2½ weeks after the injury and attends physical therapy twice a week. Her therapist told her last week that her rehab is well ahead of schedule.

Wearing her No. 3 jersey over her street clothes, Galanes carries a clipboard throughout every game. During every timeout, she’s the first person off the bench to join the huddle, and whenever a player subs out, Galanes can be seen coaching her up individually as soon as she crosses the sideline. Galanes has coached third and fourth graders with the Hanover Heat AAU program, which is run by her Hanover High coach, Dan O’Rourke, but coaching her peers is a new experience for her.

“We haven’t had a real conversation about what the bounds of my responsibilities are, but mostly my responsibility is to talk to individual players because, as their teammate, I have a pretty good sense of what they need to hear and when from a player’s perspective,” Galanes said. “Coaches try their best, but I have more of an idea of what certain plays look like on the floor and what players might be seeing.”

Things started well enough for Hanover — the Bears routed rival Lebanon in their first game, then beat Bishop Brady in their home opener. They went 1-2 at the Amsterdam (N.Y.) Holiday Showcase, facing three tough teams from the state of New York in games that did not count toward their NHIAA record. McLaughlin broke out with 27 points on the tournament’s second day in a seven-point loss to Shaker, a school with an enrollment nearly three times as large as Hanover’s.

After two more wins back in the Granite State, though, the Bears fell by 32 points at Division I powerhouse Bedford, snapping their 69-game regular-season winning streak against in-state foes that dated back to December 2018. Three days later, Hanover suffered a 35-23 loss at undefeated Bow, the team the Bears beat in last year’s title game.

“More was expected of them, and we had to not only make up for the scoring that we lost, but also (Galanes’) defensive intensity,” O’Rourke said. “From day one, we’ve been a very good defensive team, and we’ve been focusing a lot on offensive skills. Everyone needs to be a scoring threat.”

Since those back-to-back losses, the Bears (10-4 overall, 9-2 NHIAA) have won five straight, putting up a season-high 59 points in each of their last two victories against Lebanon and Oyster River. Hanover is now 45-0 at home since the start of the 2018-19 season.

Under Galanes’ tutelage, Hanover is playing its best basketball of the season as January turns to February. Senior forward Amina Ajwang, who came off the bench last year, has become one of D-II’s better rebounders and interior defenders. Another senior, Nina Sablan, had a career night with 16 points last Friday against the archrival Raiders. Freshman Claire Starosta is developing into a valuable sixth woman and an effective outside shooter.

McLaughlin, meanwhile, is emerging into the go-to scorer the Bears need her to be. She put up 34 points on Tuesday night against Oyster River, showing the ability to convert in the paint, from distance and at the free-throw line.

Galanes said it was hard for her to be around basketball right after the injury, but she quickly rediscovered how much she loves the game and said coaching could be in her future. She has come to terms with her high school basketball career ending abruptly, especially considering her final game was last year’s championship win.

“I found myself, in the first few weeks after my injury, going back through film from my freshman and sophomore year and watching the championship game from last year,” Galanes said.

“It occurred to me all at once that that was my last high school game ever. In some ways, a great way to go out, but this program means so much to me, and your senior year is that time where you get to really soak it all in and appreciate it. There’s still so much that I do have from this experience.”

Benjamin Rosenberg can be reached at brosenberg@vnews.com or 603-727-3302.

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