ALLENTOWN, Pa. (BVM) — Suffering through injuries can be extremely tough to deal with in a sport. Muhlenberg senior forward Jordyn Kamis dealt through ACL injuries in two of her four years on the Muhlenberg College field hockey team.

Kamis grew up in East Brunswick, N.J., playing soccer for 10 years.

“Since I live in a big soccer town, I did not want to play soccer in high school,” Kamis said. “My mom told me she played field hockey growing up and I should go and test it out. So I went to clinics to learn and I really enjoyed it and ended up starting it for real freshman year of high school.”

Her freshman year, Kamis played for the East Brunswick High School freshman team, which included, like her, all new players to the game.

“We played on grass freshman year and obviously the ball does not move very well as opposed to turf, so it was really more about just learning the sport even though we weren’t playing very well,” Kamis said.

In the spring, Kamis did a training clinic from USA Field Hockey called Future’s Development which helped get her game in check for next season.

“I also ran track in the spring to keep me in shape for field hockey,” Kamis added.

During her sophomore year, Kamis was a “swing player.”

“I practiced most of the time with the varsity team and rode the bench and got very limited minutes,” Kamis said. “However, I started and played all of the junior varsity games.”

In the spring of that year, Kamis tried out for her first club team.

“I tried out for the Princeton team, which was the closest to me and ended up making the second team of the three, but making that was really big for me,” Kamis said. “Having played well, I was able to practice with the top team leading up to Nationals, which meant a great deal for me and my confidence.”

Going into her junior year, Kamis was thinking about possibly taking field hockey to the next level after high school and playing in college. Kamis ended up starting every game for the varsity team her junior year.

“My dad and brother came to every game I played and filmed each one so I could put together a recruiting video for myself and send it out”, Kamis said.

Kamis reached out to a number of different schools coaches and eventually came across Muhlenberg.

“I was between Muhlenberg and one other school, but I chose Muhlenberg because of the higher caliber academics,” she said.

In the spring of Kamis’ senior year, she was playing in a game for her club team and ended up tearing her ACL.

“I waited until after graduation to get my surgery, and it was a six-month recovery which took me out of commission from June to January which meant missing my first college season,” Kamis said.

The recovery period was a long one for Kamis.

“I had physical therapy three times a week that started early in the summer at home and then when I got to school, I continued it with the training staff,” she said.

Kamis still attended every practice and every game on the bench of her freshman season as she still felt she was a part of the team. Transitioning into her sophomore year, the team consisted of a majority of seniors and sophomores in the starting lineup.

“I felt like I had a lot to prove to the coaching staff, my teammates, and myself that I belong, even though I am a rookie and have not played with any of these people before, while they have already played a full season together,” Kamis said.

Kamis put a great amount of pressure on herself which made it difficult mentally to perform.

“Thankfully I was pleased with the way I played considering the circumstances and I was given a solid amount of playing time in rewards to it,” she said.

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