Elyce Pfiefer tore her ACL and meniscus. Now, she is unable to participate in athletics for the remainder of her sophomore year.

“[In surgery] they took my quad tissue and made a new ACL and then they put two screws in my knee,” Pfiefer said.

Pfiefer plays soccer, basketball and tennis. The injury occurred while she was playing tennis.

“I had a tennis tournament,” Pfiefer said. “We were playing really good and were tied with the number four team. I was running go get a ball and then I just missed a step, and my knee buckled.” 

Healing time for an ACL tear can be around six to nine months, but there are many ways to make the healing process faster. 

“I can’t get my knee straight, so right now I go to PT [physical therapy] twice a week and I go to Cannizzo [the physical trainer at Maize] every other day I don’t go to PT,” Pfeifer said. “I also do exercises at home. We don’t know how long it will take for my knee to heal.”

Pfiefer said PT has been very successful so far. 

“I am recovering pretty well,” Pfiefer said. “I just need my knee to straighten which hasn’t happened yet.”

Although her recovery has been moving fast, she said that there are still many hard things such as mental and physical challenging.

“It was kind of hard because I had to realize that I‘m not gonna be doing sports this year,” Pfiefer said. “It was kind of painful right at the beginning but then it’s also like, I just wanna play some sports, I just wanna be better.” 

Pfiefer has had lots of support throughout this journey especially from her friend sophomore Lily Koehn.

“When she first got the injury, she didn’t think it was serious,” Koehn said. “So I actually joked around with her and made fun of her because c’mon man like what are you doing getting hurt playing a non-contact sport and then I found out she was seriously hurt. I felt so bad because she had poured everything she had in soccer and she was so excited for the next season.” 

Koehn was one of Elyce’s biggest supporters from the start and even right after her surgery. 

“I went to her house and just spent time with her, she really appreciated all the stuff that everyone was bringing her but I think just being with her kind of brought her spirits up so I’m glad I did that,” Koehn said. “It’s those little things like being there for not only in the good times but also the bad times.” 

As for her soccer team, they said she would be heavily missed out on the field.

“Elyce is a big part of our team,” Koehn said. “She’s one of our captains so it’s definitely affected us in a negative way but at the same time she’s still there cheering us on and directing us on the field, so she is certainly there in presence but we definitely miss her on the field.”  

“I’m just trying to get better and then come back stronger–try to get my legs all prepared to do this again,” Pfiefer said.