Montoursville graduate Lana Spitler, kneeling second from left, poses for a team photo with her Zaragoza CFF teammates. Spitler tore her ACL for a second time in early 2021 during a practice. This past September, Spitler returned to the team in Spain to play after a long rehab.
It was shortly after Christmas break in 2021 when Montoursville graduate Lana Spitler arrived back in Spain to prepare for the upcoming women’s soccer season with Zaragoza CFF. During her first practice with the team in early January, Spitler suffered an ACL tear, sidelining her for the season.
While in Spain, Spitler did what she could to rehabilitate and get back onto the field. She wanted to keep playing soccer and set a goal to be back for preseason in August.
Fast forward, and Spitler accomplished just that, rehabbing from that torn ACL to get onto the field and play with Zaragoza. But, unfortunately for Spitler, her story didn’t have a happy ending there. Just three games into the season in late 2021, Spitler tore her same ACL.
Spitler played the remainder of that game with a torn ACL, thinking nothing of it. She just finished recovering and thought it was simply a minor injury.
“I thought it was just part of the process, a little injury. But to be honest, I didn’t have a very good feeling,” Spitler said.
Tests came back from the trainers that everything was fine, but Spitler trusted her instinct and gut feeling and decided to go see the Real Zaragoza men’s trainer for a second opinion and he suggested Spitler get an MRI.
That’s when she found out the news that once again, she had a torn ACL in the same knee.
“It was very difficult for me because it wasn’t what I expected. I expected a meniscus tear. I remember not even crying or anything because I was in such shock,” Spitler said. “I remember the first time I was able to call my father and tell him what had happened, but this time I couldn’t. I just sent him and my mom a text that said I tore my ACL again.”
There was a fork in the road in front of Spitler at that very moment. She had a decision to make, either come back to her hometown in Montoursville, stay in Spain and do surgery once again on the ACL, or just take a break from soccer completely. After some pondering, Spitler made the decision to go to the hospital in Spain and listen to their ideas about what she could do to get back to the sport she played her entire life.
Spitler’s surgeon for her second ACL tear promised the Montoursville graduate and former Warrior great that she would be back on a soccer field again playing.
“After meeting with this surgeon and her sharing with me what exactly she would do to my knee, there was trust built,” Spitler said.
Spitler received surgery on Nov. 5 and ten months later on Sept. 11, 2022, Spitler was back in a Zaragoza uniform playing her first game. She’s playing 90 minutes and knows there’s a lot more to go in recovering, but Spitler’s more than happy to be back on the field, especially after suffering two ACL tears, an injury that often claims the careers of soccer players way too prematurely.
At Montoursville, Spitler was a three-time first-team All-Heartland all-star and helped lead the Warriors to three consecutive conference titles from 2010-12 and won a District 4 championship in 2011. She ended her career as a 50-goal scorer with an all-state nod and regional All-America selection in 2012 before having a four-year career at East Carolina. In college, she played in 80 games, scored 22 goals and had 14 assists.
The former Montoursville standout never had a doubt she would be able to play again after her second injury, however. Even after suffering a second ACL tear, she knew in her mind that she would be back on the field playing again at some point.
“I knew I could play again to be honest, I just didn’t know how well or what my knee would be like after going through so much in such a short time. I knew I would try it, but I knew there was a lot out of control and that was how my knee was going to react to everything,” Spitler said. “The moment I found out, the thing that came to my head was ‘well this is going to be a very difficult and long process.'”
And it was. The first rehab was, according to Spitler, significantly easier. The second was tough for the former Warrior.
“The second rehab process was very painful and very long. I was on crutches with no weight bearing for a long time and lost like 75% of my muscles in my legs. Which made the rehab process intense,” Spitler said.
There were small setbacks on the road to recovery to get back onto the field, and Spitler noted that she still doesn’t have all the muscle back in her leg.
“Aside from the physical and pain side of the second rehab, mentally it was also significantly harder,” Spitler sad. “The first surgery they used my hamstring, so my rehab was focused on gaining my hamstring strength back. The second they used my quad tendon, so the focus on my second rehab was gaining the function and strength back of the quad. I lost the function of my quad muscle in the second surgery.”
Spitler is slowly but surely gaining confidence in each and every game she’s been playing. At first she had some fear of re-tearing her ACL with each sharp cut she’d make on the field or sudden stop. Now, those fears are slowly starting to go away.
Spitler wasn’t too emotional in her first game back after the second tear. She cried after returning from her first injury in her first game back. After her return from her second tear though, Spitler didn’t want to get her hopes up until she recovered. It wasn’t until her parents visited a few months later and watched her play her first game that she felt she accomplished something and got emotional.
“The rehab for the first two to three months consisted of me just sitting with the STEM machine trying to get my muscles to activate again. It was difficult and to be honest, it was weird for me to see this. There was a moment I thought maybe I might be able to gain it back completely again,” Spitler said. “But it just took days and days of patience. This time coming back I was definitely more patient in returning to a game or even with the small steps like starting to run again and everything.”
And that patience has helped Spitler once again get back to playing a game she grew up with.
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