She stole the watermelon-shaped rugby ball, and as she got up out of a crouch she was knocked to the turf. With her neck hyper-flexed on the ground, two women landed on top of her. Playing for the U.S. in a game against Canada, Jillion Potter had suffered an injury that not only threatened her career but easily could have paralyzed her.

“All I remember is my neck popping — poppa-poppa-pop-pop-pop,” said Potter, a Denver resident who hopes to represent Team USA next summer in Rio de Janeiro when rugby returns to the Olympics for the first time in 92 years.

She watched the rest of that game five years ago through tears of pain and fear. She didn’t realize the risk she’d taken when she walked off the field. Her C-5 vertebra was fractured, ligaments were torn, a disc destroyed. Unwittingly, she was risking becoming a paraplegic.

WATCH: Jillion Potter trying to make 2016 Olympic Rugby team after battling cancer

Surgery saved her mobility and her career. She came back from that accident and played in two World Cups, only to be stricken by cancer last year — Stage III synovial sarcoma. She went through chemotherapy last fall, radiation this spring. Only recently has she begun to regain her strength.

“This past year,” Potter said, “has been hell.”

She remains in the mix for the Olympic team, though, so she continues to dream.

“I get teared up,” she said, “because I imagine myself there.”

Potter grew up near Austin, Texas, a skateboard kid who liked extreme sports. She played basketball in high school and went to the University of New Mexico, hoping to be a walk-on. It was there she was introduced to rugby.

She fell in love with tackling at the first practice she attended and got hooked on everything else about the game — the fun, the excitement, the tight camaraderie common to niche sports.

That was 2005. She made the U.S. under-19 team, was fast-tracked to the senior side developmental program and made her international debut in 2007. After college she moved to Minneapolis with the goal of making the 2010 World Cup team.

That dream ended when she broke her neck in the game against Canada. She put on a neck brace and continued working out while awaiting the results of an MRI. She knew she shouldn’t run but rode a bike to stay fit, determined to be ready for the World Cup.

“It was incredibly unstable, and I wasn’t the best patient,” Potter said. “I’m like, ‘My neck doesn’t hurt.’ I remember getting the phone call from the doctor in Minneapolis saying, ‘Whatever you do, don’t take off the neck brace.’ And I did — but way before that. Like a whole week.”

“I’m going to be stronger”

The MRI was scary. The doctor recommended surgery and told her she could never play rugby again. Then a USA Rugby doctor stepped in, recommending she see another doctor who had operated on NFL players. He proposed a surgery that might save her career.

“I was happy to hear there was a possibility for me to play rugby again,” Potter said. “My goal was to say, ‘OK, I’m going to go to the next World Cup and I’m going to get past this, I’m going to be stronger.’ “

She set her sights on making the 2014 World Cup team, but then another opportunity beckoned. She had been playing the version of the game known as 15s, but in 2012 she was invited to join the U.S. Sevens team. Sevens is the form that will be played at the Olympics.

“15s is 15-on-15. It’s an 80-minute game, and it’s a lot like soccer in terms of territory and strategy,” Potter said. “It’s a little slower. Sevens is 7-on-7, same field space — 100 meters by 70 meters — and it’s a 15-minute game. A small error can make or break the game. It’s very exciting, lots of high-velocity tackles, lots of one-on-ones. Usually there is quite a bit of scoring, momentum shifts.”

She made the 2013 World Cup team in Sevens and the 2014 World Cup team in 15s, but during the tournament last summer she felt a swelling in her jaw that kept getting bigger. She was having a hard time breathing and teammates gave her grief for how loudly she was snoring.

“I was fatigued, but I’m competing in a four-week World Cup, I’m trained to ignore fatigue,” Potter said. “I’m trained to have a hard time breathing and to make that your normal.”

After World Cup she had surgery to remove the growth in her jaw, which turned out to be a malignant tumor. She began chemotherapy almost immediately at the University of Colorado Hospital, six four-day cycles every 21 days. She went for walks on the campus in Aurora with a USA Rugby jersey and shoulder pads hanging from her IV pole.

“Fear was huge,” Potter said. “I tried to be as positive as I could. I also allowed myself to have those dark days, to cry and to really mourn, to really grieve. Nobody wants to hear the C-word, especially me. I’m young, I’m healthy, I’m fit, I exercise. I was like, ‘What do you mean, I have cancer? I’m 28 years old and I’m a USA Rugby player. This is crazy.’

“There still is a lot of fear, even today, because recurrence is so possible.”

Keeping the dream alive

After chemo she spent two months in Houston getting radiation that ended March 31. She’d lost 20 pounds during chemo, and doctors told her she might lose another 20 during radiation.

“I was like, ‘Not me. I will chug anything high calorie, I don’t care how painful it is, I can’t lose weight, I can’t afford to. I want to make the Olympics.’ “

Potter’s wife, Carol Fabrizio, said Potter never lost hope.

“I never once heard her say, ‘Woe is me,’ ” Fabrizio said. “Whenever she talks about things other people would see as tough or hard or insurmountable, she just never quite looks at them that way. Seeing it through something like this, it’s awe-inspiring. It’s hard not to just stare at her in amazement in the way she attacks things.”

Since the radiation treatments ended, Potter has been gaining strength and focusing on next year and the Olympics. She was able to start doing some tackling in May, and over the past month she’s started to feel almost normal. That helps keep her dream alive.

“If I make the Olympics, emotionally it would be quite overwhelming and an amazing accomplishment,” Potter said. “I hope it can show people that they can still pursue their dreams when the worst has happened to them.”

John Meyer: jmeyer@denverpost.com or twitter.com/johnmeyer