For a kid who can’t play this season due to a knee injury, junior third baseman/catcher Morgan Reczkiewicz sure is making her presence felt for Oak Forest.

During preseason practice and in the early games, Reczkiewicz has taken on the role of being another coach on the field and in the dugout. And she isn’t afraid to get loud when doing so.

Isn’t that right, senior first baseman MacKenzie Kerr?

“Oh, yes, Morgan is good at that,” Kerr said. “She has really taken over that coaching mode. We like hearing that younger voice. She gets what we’re going through. And since she can’t go through it herself right now, she’s really helping us.”

Reczkiewicz was in her best coaching form during Thursday’s indoor practice. She was putting balls on tees for the hitters while discussing various things with other teammates.

She’s doing everything she can to enforce the “Bengal way” for coach Nick Fuentes. And to that end, she isn’t about to let the brace on her left leg stop her.

It helps when your teammates listen.

“I feel it’s a big thing that the girls look up to me,” Reczkiewicz said. “Especially on certain days, when we practice with our JV team, knowing he has faith in me to push those younger girls as well.

“Things like that keep me going, knowing that I can’t play right now.”

Reczkiewicz was projected to be one of Oak Forest’s leading hitters. As a sophomore, she had a .461 batting average with 12 doubles, seven home runs and 42 RBIs.

Like many Bengals, however, Reczkiewicz is a multisport athlete. This past fall during a volleyball match, misfortune hit her in a major way.

“We were actually playing Lemont for conference,” Reczkiewicz said. “I went up to block and I came down to the ground wrong. My (left) knee kind of just buckled, went out and went in, in all these different directions.

“The thing was, I didn’t hear anything pop. So I was like, ‘OK, this maybe isn’t as bad.’”

But it was. Reczkiewicz, who was in the middle of being recruited by Central Connecticut, underwent knee surgery for a torn ACL and meniscus in late October.

The good news? She committed to Central Connecticut. The bad news? She couldn’t go trick or treating on Halloween.

“I didn’t, yeah,” Reczkiewicz said, smiling. “It was one of those things that I didn’t want to go outside in 30 degrees on my crutches.”

There would soon be an ironic twist to the situation. During basketball season, her freshman sister Kelsey also suffered an ACL injury. They would wind up spending the winter doing physical therapy together.

“We would literally leave right after school,” Reczkiewicz said. “By the time we’d get home, it was dark out.”

It at least resulted in a silver lining.

“You always have a bond with your sibling,” Reczkiewicz said. “But now we’re very close. This is something she knows she can come to me for advice because we had the exact same thing.”

The post-surgery prognosis has been good. Sort of. It will be a long shot for Reczkiewicz to be back for the state playoffs. But she’s still looking forward to her senior season at Oak Forest.

In the meantime, Fuentes is in the process of trying to replace someone he called “irreplaceable.”

“Everything about Morgan is softball,” Fuentes said. “She lives for the game. She was a strong hitter in the three hole, just a force in the lineup. And she was not afraid to tell the girls when things weren’t going the right way, what needed to be done.

“It was a blow to lose her. My heart dropped when I found out because I know how much work she puts in and cares about the program. Now, we’re just trying the best we can to piece together a Morgan without having Morgan.”

He can count on the original to help make sure it’s done right.

Tony Baranek is a freelance reporter for the Daily Southtown.