There was no way Langley senior
midfielder Stephanie Dansereau
should have been marking the Northern
Region's most dangerous striker.
Dansereau hasn't played a full season
of high school soccer since she
was a freshman. She's been operated
on four times — both ankles and one
knee, twice — in two years and
missed all of last season.
She quit her club team, Reston
F.C. Milan, at the end of last year, and
Langley girls soccer coach Melissa
Bibbee isn't the only one who resists
the urge to cringe every time
Dansereau makes a sharp cut.
But last week Dansereau dispelled
all fears with a dominating performance
against Chantilly's All-Examiner
scoring sensation Amy Smerdzinski
(17 goals last season), holding her
scoreless for 90 minutes in regulation
and overtime as the Saxons defeated
the Chargers, 1-0, improving
their record to 4-1.
It's been a long time since
Dansereau felt that confident about
her game. Three years to be exact.
As a freshman, Dansereau led the
Saxons with 8 goals and 14 assists.
She was a speedy forward then
who never had an injury keep her off
the field. At times her ankles, banged
up from years of various sports,
bothered her. But she never expected
the news she got during a doctor's
visit in the fall of her sophomore year.
"When I brought her in for an
evaluation, [the doctor's] first comment
was, 'Is she walking on these
ankles?'" said Betty Kautt,
Dansereau's mother. "I said, 'She's
playing soccer on them.' And he said,
'Not for long she isn't.'"
Dansereau's ankles had become so
loose they were almost a sideshow
act. The solution: two surgeries, five
months on crutches, and permanent
screws in both ankles. Rehabilitation
hampered her comeback that spring,
and Dansereau played only four district
games.
The bigger setback came later
that year in her first game back with
Milan. She tore the anterior cruciate
ligament in her right knee.
Nearly a year to the day of her ankle
surgery, she went under the knife
again. It began another long road to
recovery, spending two to three
hours a day three to four times a
week in physical therapy.
"She beat all the odds with her ankles,
and that was miraculous, so I
think she thought, 'Alright,'" said
Kautt. "That's her attitude, and that
was mine and it worked."
But it didn't work. Dansereau
knew it was difficult and the pain of
physical therapy often brought her to
tears. But after months of rehab, the
range of motion in her knee — the
measurement of recovery from an
ACL injury — hadn't returned.
Dansereau sat out her junior season,
her grades started to suffer, and
she began to lose her connection with
the sport she had played since she
was five. She backed out of a chance
to be the varsity girls' soccer team
manager and barely spoke to Bibbee
because it was too upsetting.
"If you knew her last year and had
seen her around, you would've
thought she was a completely different
person," said Bibbee. "Soccer is
everything to her, and when she
couldn't play, when she wasn't even
able to run … we speak all the time
and she wouldn't come talk to me."
By the time her parents sought a
second medical opinion and convinced
a hesitant Dansereau to undergo
another surgery, not playing
again was a distinct possibility.
"The doctor told me, 'I don't even
care about soccer, you won't be able
to walk when you're older if you don't
do this,'" Dansereau said.
And so for the third consecutive
November, Dansereau had surgery,
this time a scoping procedure to investigate
the situation inside her
knee and clean out the scar tissue.
The results stunned everyone.
"Even after the surgery, the doctor
told me, 'I'm very concerned she
won't get [the range of motion]
back,'" said Kautt. "A week later, it
was back. It was just unbelievable."
Just like that, a year's worth of
pain and injury were gone. Her full
range of motion returned.
"I can't even explain it," she said.
"Before, I was doing all the exercises
at home, I was doing everything, crying
every day. I didn't do any exercises
at home for this one … I still got it
all back in two weeks."
At tryouts in March, Bibbee was
suspect. But not for long.
Dansereau felt like her old self
again, and now she's one of Langley's
fastest, most versatile players and no
longer afraid of a physical challenge.
She's one of three team captains, she
can play with both feet, and she's
played every game so far this season,
tallying one goal and one assist.
"Now she's perfectly fine," said
Dansereau's best friend and co-captain,
Caitlin Walko. "It's so great to
have her back."
Although Dansereau visits the
school trainers often, ices, stretches
and lifts weights, she said nothing
hurts at all.
"I was so hesitant to do it for a
year that it's all in my mind that I
can't do it," Dansereau said. "It's not
my body."
Her next goal, besides winning a
district title, is to prepare for Purdue,
where she'll walk on this fall.
"I think I'll really surprise them,"
Dansereau said. "That's what I'm really
looking forward to is just proving
myself to everyone. Just to say, 'All of
you who thought I was injured, all of
you who threw me off your list, look
at me now.'"