STARKVILLE — Physical rehabilitation is just part of a student-athlete’s recovery from a serious injury.
Through all of the pain that accompanies working to get back to 100 percent, learning how to deal with feelings of doubt and fear is part of the mental hopscotch that makes the challenge of returning to the field of play even tougher.
Now imagine the added uncertainty a recent transfer would feel after getting hurt in a new place. Should she have left her first school? Would it be better to return home? Is it worth it to go through 10-11 months of rehabilitation?
Olivia Hernandez faced all of those feelings and questions after she transferred from Arizona State to Mississippi State following her freshman season in 2016.
The 5-foot-6 midfielder from Phoenix, scored a goal in MSU’s exhibition match against Memphis on Aug. 11, 2017, and played 71 minutes in the season opener against Stephen F. Austin on Aug. 18 before suffering a season-ending anterior cruciate ligament injury.
“I saw the freshmen come in in the spring and I am there doing rehab and everyone is obviously getting so much better every day,” Hernandez said. “You’re getting better, too, but it is not the same. You want to get better at your sport, and I think that is one of the biggest doubts you have when you come back. You haven’t played in so long you start questioning (whether you’re going to be able to come back). The initial time you get injured you wonder, ‘Is it worth it? Do I want to come back? Do I want to keep going with this sport’
“I think once you get over the first time of everything it gets better.”
Hernandez is still working her left leg back to 100 percent, but she has played a key role in the success of the No. 25 MSU women’s soccer team. She likely will have a key role at 4 p.m. Sunday (ESPNU) when No. 25 MSU takes on Ole Miss in a Southeastern Conference match at the Ole Miss Soccer Stadium in Oxford.
Hernandez has played in all 15 matches (13 starts) for MSU (9-4-2, 2-4-2). She is averaging a little more than 46 minutes per game as part of a deep roster that has 19 players averaging more than 20 minutes a match. She has no goals and one assist.
Hernandez referred to her comeback as a “big self fight.” After her injury, Hernandez said she wanted to compare herself to how she played prior to tearing her ACL. She said her rehabilitation was even harder because she was close to being medically cleared when she learned she had to have another unrelated surgery that set her back about another month. The second surgery at the end of February resulted in another round of questions. She credited her coaches and teammates for supporting her and helping her to stay positive.
“Three weeks doesn’t sound like a long time (that she had to sit out after the second surgery), but when you haven’t been playing for a year, or seven months already, the end goal just keeps getting further and further away,” Hernandez said.
Through all of the doubts, Hernandez knew as she ran around the MSU Soccer Field and watched her teammates in preseason training that she would be back for the 2018 campaign. Even though she felt “stagnant” so many times during the process, her parents also encouraged her by telling her it was a temporary feeling that she had to push forward.
“It was just hard because after I tore my ACL I couldn’t walk for like four weeks,” Hernandez said. “It is just like learning to walk and run all over again, but a lot of what I learned is muscle memory. You think you’re not going to be able to do these things, but you do it once and you can do it.”
Hernandez hopes to continue to make progress. She feels there is more that she can contribute to the program, just as she feels everyone can do more to help the program get to the next level. That would be answer MSU coach Tom Anagnost would appreciate because the second-year head coach is trying to push everyone to be tougher to elevate the program.
“She has had a tough go,” Anagnost said. “She didn’t just have that injury. She had a setback during that injury and had another surgery, so she has had a rougher go than the typical ACL tear, and she is obviously getting herself back and helping us.”
Anagnost said Hernandez is athletic, quick, fast, pretty good defensively, and can press. Most important, he said she “has an engine” she has used to set an example for her teammates. He acknowledged Hernandez had some tentativeness when she initially returned from the injury, but he feels most of that has gone way.
“Ten to 11 months is a long time,” Anagnost said. “She just has to catch up technically and tactically, but it is coming.”
Hernandez said her role has changed from the 2017, but she said she will continue to help in any way because she knows it isn’t about her and that it’s about the team. Her goal is to help push the team to do more just like she encouraged herself to fight back to get on the field.
“I think it is just going to take more repetition,” said Hernandez, who hopes to graduate with an undergraduate degree next December. She then plans to pursue a master’s degree in business. “I am trying to set myself up so I can do that. … I think it will be exciting to stay here and get a master’s degree or to get into a graduate program and to play soccer. I think that year I was injured I learned to appreciate the sport a lot more and the people around me.”
Follow Dispatch sports editor Adam Minichino on Twitter @ctsportseditor
Adam Minichino is the former Sports Editor for The Commercial Dispatch.
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