An ACL tear wouldn’t stop Southern girls lacrosse’s Molly Durkin
Molly Durkin always radiated confidence when she charged down the field, hunting down an opposing attacker. But ever since May 22 of last year, Durkin runs with a ghost haunting her.
Up by seven goals, Fallston was going to win the Class 1A state girls lacrosse title regardless of what the Southern defender did in those final minutes. Still, she relented — until her body gave out.
With two minutes left, Durkin was knocked to the ground. Before her coaches carried her off the field, Durkin knew the distinct pop she felt in her knee meant an ACL tear.
“You never expect it to happen,” Durkin said. “But I was worried about the future.”
Grief struck Durkin quickly and dogged her for months. Losing her senior field hockey season reignited it.
But she knew she had work to do.
The Southern coaches honestly didn’t know whether they’d have their star defender back in time for the season. But Durkin made sure she would be.
While most athletes can expect nine months to a year of recovery time — especially depending on how quickly they can get surgery — Durkin did everything she could to trim hers to eight months. She attended physical therapy three times a week and ran 4 miles for two hours every day.
“I was never much of a runner,” Durkin said. “I pushed myself more than I ever had before.”
Durkin learned all she could from friends who suffered ACL tears before. Girls lacrosse players are the most vulnerable, per a study by the Journal of Women’s Sports Medicine, with as high as a quarter of all players likely to suffer the season-ending injury during their careers. The compounding stress on the lower body from hard sprints and constant, sudden cuts pivots make them prime candidates. Year-round players are even more at risk.
Teammates texted Durkin encouragement constantly, whether they were familiar with the injury or not. When she returned to play in the spring, the Bulldogs assured Durkin: “You’re fine. You’re fine.”
But she didn’t feel fine.
Physically, nothing was wrong, but history already proved to her that could change on a dime. Nothing could stop her from pounding turf from one side of the field to the other before. Early on this year, Durkin instead gave a quick pass to the first teammate she saw to clear the ball.
“It was frustrating,” Durkin said, “because I was like ‘Why can I not get over this mental block and just do it?’”
She didn’t hide her fear from her coaches. But from coach Courtney Yeatman and her staff’s point of view, the best way for the senior to overcome it was to “let her take the reins.”
“She played every minute last year, but if she wanted to play a quarter or a few minutes, pull herself out of a drill at practice, we trusted her,” Yeatman said. “That mental aspect had to be her own. But, she only played a half-game once.”
Durkin realized in the middle of an April game she stormed from one end to the other without a second thought. It just “felt amazing.”
The worry still nags her, but she muffles that anxious thought with affirmations: “I’m better. I worked hard. The surgeon did their job.”
Even when she was named captain as a junior, Durkin deferred to the seniors at the time to take control. Now a captain again, and one of only five seniors on the roster, Durkin had no choice but to speak up.
“If she didn’t, no one else would,” Yeatman said.
Over time, Durkin felt like her younger teammates learned how to feed frustrations over plays or losses to fuel their fire. But her own crossroads came when Southern played Severna Park, Broadneck and South River back-to-back-to-back and dropped all three games. Durkin remained stoic through most of it, but by the end, Yeatman said, there were some tears.
Yeatman sat her down and reminded her that her unit wasn’t bad. Some offenses were just better. They were doing the right things. Mistakes happen, she said, but they’ll fix them.
The coach watched how the freshman defender beside Durkin absorbed the lesson. As Durkin embraced the challenge, so did she.
“She has a lot of mental toughness,” Yeatman said, “but she’s also so selfless that she happily puts the entire team on her back. She’s helped so much.”
Southern’s season ended with a loss to South Carroll on Wednesday in the state quarterfinals. Durkin had dreams of finishing her high school career with a state title, but a primary goal for everyone who suits up for the Bulldogs is “leaving the program better than you found it,” and that’s exactly what Durkin has done.
Have a sports tip? Contact Katherine Fominykh at kfominykh@baltsun.com or DM @capgazsports on Instagram.
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