Briauna Rybolt was playing in a Northwest College soccer game on Oct. 4, when she felt a pop in her knee and just knew she had torn her right ACL.

“I was pretty positive about what had happened,” she said. “I’ve actually torn my left one before, so I’m familiar with what it felt like.” 

Rybolt is now well into her recovery, and she hasn’t had to go through it alone, as teammates Abby Derbyshire and Aubree Fisher also tore their ACLs last fall.  

“They were definitely crucial parts of our team, and they’re super wonderful people, so having to see them go through it, knowing that I had done it before, was heartbreaking for sure,” Rybolt said.  “But now it’s been nice to be able to chat at practice, because obviously we’re all sitting out.”

One in 19 female soccer players will sustain an ACL injury during their careers, according to the National Institutes of Health. Female soccer players also have the highest incidence of ACL injuries among all female collegiate athletes, often resulting from noncontact, high-risk pivoting movements.

Abby Derbyshire

After missing all of last season due to a torn meniscus, Derbyshire, a forward from Billings, was excited for her redshirt sophomore season. Then during an early season September practice she was running, took a step and felt a snap in her left knee.

“At first I kind of thought I was OK, but then I tried to get up and I felt that something was wrong,” she said. “I started crying and the panic set in. I went inside with our trainer, and he did an ACL test to test the stability of it. As soon as he did that, I knew it was really gone.”

She had surgery to repair her ACL on Oct. 2 and was on crutches for the first five weeks. Once she got out of the full knee brace in December, she began to rebuild strength in her leg. However, overall improvement has been slower than she hoped. 

“It’s just a lot of strengthening and running, but I’m not seeing too much progress right now,” she said. “So that’s a little frustrating, but at the same time, I know it’s not getting worse so that makes it a little bit easier.”

Derbyshire only suffered minor dings in high school, but college soccer so far has been a struggle. She sprained her ACL at the end of her freshman season and had to take a few months to recover that winter. Then came the meniscus tear in her right knee. She felt pain in her knee after a preseason game against Carroll College, but an MRI didn’t reveal anything. 

“So I just kept trying to rehab and get the pain to go away and nothing was working,” she said. “Finally I got in to see my surgeon in Billings, and he said, ‘Let’s just do a scope and see what we can find.’ They found just the slightest little tear. I was only out for six weeks, but I literally spent the whole season trying to figure out what was wrong.”

Derbyshire said it was hard to watch both Fisher and Rybolt go down later in the season.

“I just felt really bad that they were having to go through exactly what I was going through,” she said. “But at the same time, I do think it was kind of nice to have us all coping and supporting each other. Everybody’s body is different, and so we were all kind of progressing at different rates.”

She is graduating with degrees in fine art and psychology and plans to transfer to Briar Cliff University in Sioux City, Iowa, in the fall to continue her soccer career.

“I’m hoping I’ll get cleared to play contact (soccer) in July,” she said. “That’ll be right at nine months, so it’s kind of pushing it a little bit. We have our first fitness test Aug. 7.”

Aubree Fisher 

Fisher’s ACL tear happened during practice at the end of September. 

“We were playing a small-sided game and I had possession of the ball,” she said. “I planted and changed direction and felt a pop. As soon as it happened my knee felt very unstable and I couldn’t walk. I knew it was my ACL even though I haven’t had prior tears.”

A sophomore defender for the Lady Trappers, the Powell native was looking forward to her final year playing at Northwest. Prior to the incident, she’d never been injured playing besides a rolled ankle.

“All I could think about was being out for the season,” she said. “I was so mad because I put so much into where I was at mentally and physically and then it all came to an end.”

She had surgery to repair her left knee on Oct. 21 and said the first two weeks were the worst pain she’s ever been in. 

“After that I kept getting weird episodes where it was so painful I couldn’t walk or bear the pain,” she said. “It was very hard to deal with. No matter what I did, nothing would help. I just had to wait it out. It was so frustrating because I would be progressing and then it would randomly start hurting so bad.”

After months of dealing with the issue, she ended up having to get another surgery last month to see if they could determine the problem. 

“I was somewhat relieved when I had to get a second surgery,” she said. “I couldn’t bear the pain anymore and I knew something would have to happen if my knee was going to get better.”

The surgeon determined Fisher had a small infection in her knee.

“I had to get my knee washed out and get my IT band repositioned along with other sutures,” she said. “After my second surgery I have been healing well and nothing has bothered me.”

Currently Fisher is able to run and work out, but is not cleared to play soccer until this summer. She also recently started sprinting and jumping. 

She said watching her fellow teammates injure themselves was hard, but it’s been nice to know she’s not completely alone on this journey. 

“We have kind of been going through it with each other,” Fisher added. “We are all at different points in recovery and I go to a different PT than them and am doing different workouts, but we always check in on each other and keep each other updated.”

Fisher is committed to play for Doane University in Nebraska next season. She hopes she is cleared to play by the time the season starts this fall.

“I want to get back to doing the thing I love the most,” she said.

Briauna Rybolt

Rybolt was playing against Western Nebraska on Oct. 4 when her injury happened. She said the team was really getting into a rhythm at that point in the season after a rough stretch early. 

“Things were feeling good,” she added. “I was getting lots of playing time, and I thought I was playing pretty well, so it was unfortunate timing.”

She got the ball and had a defender at her back, but there was no contact. Rybolt took a step forward and when her right leg planted, her ACL blew. She said the possibility of injuring her other knee was always in the back of her mind after she tore her left ACL, but she did some specific training to help lessen the likelihood of that happening. 

“It was always a fear in the back of my mind and it did happen, unfortunately,” she said.

Rybolt  was able to jog off the field to the sidelines, where she ran and sat behind the bench. She wouldn’t let anyone touch her at first, including the trainer, as she tried to process what had happened. 

“I was crying, not because of the pain with this one, but because I knew what had happened,” she said. “I was just telling my coach, ‘I can’t do it again, it was too hard the first time and I can’t go through this again.’” 

Once she calmed down and the trainer confirmed her injury, she said the six-plus hour bus ride home from Nebraska wasn’t easy as it gave her too much time to think. However, after returning to NWC and talking more with her parents she began shifting her focus toward surgery and recovery. 

Rybolt returned home to Boise, Idaho, later that month for surgery with the same surgeon who had fixed her left ACL. She recovered at home for about a week and a half before coming back to Powell to resume her classes. 

She feels rehab has gone even better this time around, because she’s more aware of the process and how her knee should be feeling.

“I was able to get back up on my feet, get my strength back a lot quicker,” she said.

Rybolt has worked with the school trainer and can now run, sprint, lift and even shoot a soccer ball. 

“I can basically do everything except for an uncontrolled game, making contact or any abrupt switching of direction,” she said. 

Rybolt plans to return to Northwest for her sophomore season with her full return to play set for Aug. 1. 

“I’m looking forward to it being the best season of my life, coming back and playing harder than I ever have,” she said. “My goal is to go D1 so I’m going to just work all of these months up until August to get stronger and better.”