Grove City's Burtch trying the improbable again
GROVE CITY — Lily Burtch remembers well the pain, the sweat and the tears it took to play through a torn ACL two years ago.
And now, the Grove City High senior is facing the same challenge after suffering her second torn ACL — this one in the other knee — in three years.
“I'm going to keep trying,” Burtch said. “Even if I can't do it because of my knee, I'm going to try.
“I knew I was going to wait to have surgery (if I suffered another torn ACL). It (stinks) that I have to go through this whole process again, but it is what it is.”
It's a process that is rare for any athlete, let alone one who plays two sports at a high level — volleyball and basketball — like Burtch.
Two years ago, she felt her knee buckle and the ACL in her right knee shred during what is normally the mundane of the mundane — a simple practice drill.She believed her sophomore seasons in volleyball and basketball were over.Then a simple question changed all of that.Her father, Chris Burtch, who is also the girls basketball coach at Grove City and a history teacher at the Slippery Rock High, observed how well his daughter was progressing at physical therapy.So, he asked the trainer, “Can she play the volleyball season through it?”The response. “Let's try.”Lily Burtch not only played through the injury, she played well, prompting Chris to ask the same question again about the upcoming basketball season.The response, “Let's try again.”Lily made it through the basketball season unscathed and shortly after had surgery to repair the ACL.This time around, however, is different for Lily.The stakes are higher. Much higher.“I feel like I can't miss my senior season,” she said. “That's why it's kind of a big deal to me now.”The odds are also against her.Can she do it again? Can she make it through a high school career with a torn ACL in each knee without missing one game?“It's almost unheard of to tear your ACL once and not miss any of your seasons,” Chris Burtch said. “She has an opportunity here to do it twice.“She will fight through this,” he added, “and fight to have a season above everything else.”Lily Burtch thought she was lucky the second time around this March when a player on an opposing AAU basketball team dove for a loose ball and crashed into her left knee.
She felt the same sensation as her previous knee injury.“The first thing I thought was, 'Oh no! I feel like it's torn'”But there was no swelling and she had full range of motion. Even the doctor thought she had escaped serious injury, but ordered and MRI just to make sure.The MRI came back with bad news. The ACL was torn.This time, however, armed with the knowledge that she had played through a previous torn ACL, Lily set her focus on doing it yet again.“It's crazy,” she said. “I haven't missed a season yet and I tore both ACLs. It's kind of, I don't know, special to me because I know I can do it and hopefully I can do it again.“I feel like I'm going to be scared sometimes to go 100 percent,” she added, “but it's not like me to not go 100 percent. I'm just going to try to push through it like I did last time and hopefully it works out.”To both Lily and Chris, knowledge is power.“It's tough, but the big difference is two years ago, we didn't know anything,” Chris said. “We thought it was a death sentence. We know she can play through it.”Lily, though, is also thinking about the future.She wants to play basketball in college somewhere and hopes to coach someday like her father.She also doesn't want to have chronic pain in her knees.“They told me the first time if I didn't get surgery I would need a knee replacement sometime in my life,” Lily said. “I don't want that. Sports are very important to me and I hope I can play my senior year and then hopefully play in college, but I'm looking at the long term. I need to get the surgeries done because I don't want problems long term. I don't want problems for the rest of my life.”Lily's immediate task is working to get cleared for the volleyball season, which is rapidly approaching.She is making progress and believes she will be ready to go once the fall season rolls around.“I'm trying it again, I guess,” Lily said, shrugging. “Because I've done this before, I played on it before, it helps me believe in myself that I can do it again. Every day I will be praying for the next.”
