During preseason of her junior year at Hopkins, a private school in New Haven, Conn., Emily Yin went to shield the ball like she’d done hundreds of times.
It was, as she recalled 18 months later, a routine play. But when an opponent charged through the forward’s leg, she dropped to the ground with her body tingling. She eventually got up and could walk on her own, but something didn’t feel quite right. A month later, Yin (Westport, Conn.) discovered she’d torn her ACL.
"I tore it completely, so I didn’t feel any pain," Yin said. "It was out of the blue and a real shock, because I was walking normally, but it was so, so torn."