The pain hit in a nonconference game against Williamsburg in early January.

Third quarter.

Mid-Prairie forward Maddie Nonnenmann went up for the ball in a scramble for a rebound. Her hand was jammed among other hands. And the next thing Maddie knew, she was in a doctor’s office being told that her season was over after having her right pinky finger examined and x-rayed. The finger was broken.

You can imagine what that conversation went like.

“They told me not to play,” Maddie says.

Ha.

“But I didn’t listen,” she said. “No way. No way I’m not gonna play over a pinky.”

So she played. She scored her 1,000^th career point. She wound up as the third-leading scorer and 11^th-leading rebounder in the River Valley South Conference. She was named to the Iowa Girls Coaches Association Class 3A All-District Team and the River Valley's Elite All-Conference Team.

Nonnenmann’s season didn’t end until last Saturday night at Iowa City West, when she scored a game-high 13 points and grabbed a game-high 8 rebounds in a bruising 44-32 loss to Davenport Assumption in a Class 3A regional championship game. It was the first regional title game of Nonnenmann’s high school career.

The Golden Hawks wouldn’t have gotten there without her.

“She’s just such a good teammate,” junior forward Landry Pacha said after Saturday’s game, fighting off her emotions. “She cares for us. She’s a great leader.”

And since the 10^th of January, Nonnenmann played with a broken finger. Last year she broke both pinky fingers. It wasn’t unusual to see head coach Danny Hershberger taping the finger up just before a game. Saturday, no tape. Tough kid.

“It’s still broken,” she said, showing her crooked pinky. “I just don’t wrap it anymore. It’s mostly healed.”

Now, when you’re a 6-foot power forward, your game is crashing the boards for rebounds, going up to shoot against other girls who are just as tall and even bouncing back behind the 3-point line to take a long shot.

With a broken finger.

Did it hurt?

“Yeah,” Maddie said, nodding her head.

It seemed like every other game, she said, there was another jam happening between her finger and the ball or her finger and somebody else’s fingers and the ball. Just imagine jamming your finger in a doorway just before you slam the door. Then again. And again.

But end the season? End her senior season? No way.

And that’s pretty much how the conversation went with Hershberger after her visit to the doctor.

“Yeah,” Hershberger said with a smile following Saturday’s game.

No choice.

“There wasn’t anything that was going to stop her from being able to play and compete,” he said. “It’s not like it’s not a painful injury. But to be able to not only play through the pain, but play at a high level and continue to do the things she was able to do is just absolutely incredible to me. That’s who she is, though. That toughness she has.”

The Golden Hawks lost that game to Williamsburg by three points, a night of double pain for Nonnenmann. But then they won the next five games, including a two-point victory over River Valley South power West Liberty, a team the Golden Hawks hadn’t beaten since 2018. Nonnenmann scored a game-high 23 points in the 40-38 win, equaling a career high.

One week later, Jan. 31 at Washington with her younger sister, Maya, playing alongside her, Nonnenmann scored her 1,000^th point in a 47-27 win.

One night after breaking her finger, she scored a game-high 21 points and had 6 rebounds in a 52-48 win over Durant. She was the Golden Hawks’ leading scorer in the team’s last 16 games, usually leaving the court only at the end of a quarter for a quick break or in the final minutes of a lopsided game.

Working together with senior teammate and co-captain Cana Rediger, Nonnenmann helped lead the Golden Hawks to a place they hadn’t been since 2017.

“She’s a good person on and off the court. I just look up to her so much,” said Pacha, who took up some of the rebounding battles to help out Nonnenmann. “She’s a good person and she’s a great athlete.”

Saturday, Nonnenmann almost led the Golden Hawks back into the game against Assumption with a dominant performance in the final quarter. She drove the lane for a basket in the opening seconds and then ripped a rebound away from Assumption’s 6-foot-1 Ava Schubert.

“I wanted to fight as hard as I could,” she said.

“Her toughness is unmatched,” Hershberger said. “Other teams know she’s gonna get the ball and she finds ways to score anyway. Other teams are going to be aggressive, they’re going to push, they’re going to dare to call fouls on them when they’re guarding her. She just takes it in stride and does what she does and doesn’t let those things bother her.”

And now, there will only be memories of a 15-win season. Great memories.

“The season’s been amazing,” Maddie said. “I couldn’t have asked for a better team. Couldn’t have asked for better anything. It’s been amazing.”

News columnist Paul Bowker can be reached at bowkerpaul1@gmail.com. Follow him on Twitter: a@bowkerpaul.