After ACL injury, senior Kelly Sosa has healed and is looking for Ivy title

In anchoring the back line for the women's soccer team, Kelly Sosa has had to make a lot of tough decisions.

As the last field player in front of the goalkeeper, any misstep or slight hesitation could cost her team a goal. Then, just over a year ago, the senior captain was faced with one of the toughest decisions of her life.

After falling prey to a torn ACL during the summer after her junior year, Sosa had to make a choice: take a year off of school, rehab the knee and come back strong for a final season, or forgo her final year of soccer eligibility and graduate with her class.

"I didn't try to push her one way or the other," head coach Julie Shackford said. "I was more of a sounding board than anything else. We talked about the pros and cons of each decision. Even though I wanted her back for selfish reasons as a soccer coach, the choice was hers."

Sosa gave the matter a great deal of thought.

"The decision was hard for a couple reasons," Sosa said. "At Princeton, so many things relate to your particular class that it's hard to step away and become a part of another class. On the other hand, as an athlete, your senior year is the culmination of all your efforts. In the end, I decided that I had worked too hard not to get a chance at my senior season."

And so the long and arduous rehab process began. During the first months of recovery, Sosa spent three hours a day in the training room strengthening and rebuilding her legs. As the need for supervised rehab therapy abated, Sosa picked up the slack on her own time.

"Once I had my strength back, I was able to focus on more soccer-specific training even though I couldn't play," Sosa said. "Along with general lifting, I worked on speed drills, changing direction and agility."

After getting clearance from her doctor, Sosa began playing again. She joined the Mercer Wildcats, a semipro team, for their summer season.

"Playing a full schedule of games was really important for my confidence," Sosa said. "The leg feels great now, and I really have no apprehensions heading into the year."

And she shouldn't. Sosa will rejoin a team that went 14-3-2 and captured a second straight Ivy League title in her absence. In fact, the coaching staff's toughest job may well be finding how to best utilize the depth of talent in the program.

"Right now, we're playing [Sosa] at center midfield," Shackford said. "Our back line played so well last year that we can afford to let Kelly roam around and use her talent."

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As Shackford points out, however, to say that Sosa is a skilled player hardly encompasses the presence she brings to the team.

"Experience will certainly be one of the key things that Kelly will bring to this team," Shackford said. "She also has an incredible work rate and competitiveness. There aren't too many people out there with the same drive to succeed."

Thus far, her drive and competitiveness have led Sosa to All-Ivy League selections in each of her first three seasons. For the past four years she has also played for the W League, a sort of minor league for the WUSA, the United States' professional women's soccer league.

As for the future, Sosa isn't writing anything in stone.

"A lot of the future depends on how this fall goes and how well I play," Sosa said. "Being in the W League, I understand the level of competition and I would certainly consider trying to play in the WUSA. But I also might want to work for a few years and go to grad school. I guess that's a decision I'll have to make when the time comes."

Given her track record, that shouldn't be a problem.