Barrett Perkins, left, Maddy Beck, center, and Izzy Folsom throw the knee braces they had to wear after they sustained ACL tears. All three Winthrop seniors have moved past needing to wear the braces but are still waiting to be cleared to return to game play. Andree Kehn/Sun Journal

WINTHROP — Izzy Folsom sprinted then leaped toward the long jump pit, looking to cap her junior year with another top-three finish at the Class C track and field state championships in June.

Then, pop.

“I run down the runway, and I get in the air, I’m like throwing everything forward, I’m trying to reach as far as I can,” Folsom said. “I remember my foot hit, and I heard a pop. I didn’t feel anything, I just thought, ‘No way this just happened.’ And then it hurt.”

When Folsom, Barrett “Bear” Perkins and Maddy Beck envisioned their senior years, having their fall sports seasons derailed by ACL tears wasn’t part of the plan. But that was the fate for all three.

Folsom has been a key player on the three-time state champion Winthrop field hockey team, but this fall has been mostly limited to helping the Ramblers from the sideline in their quest for a fourth straight Class C title.

Perkins’ injury occurred during a summer football camp run by Bucksport High School graduate and former University of Maine player David Gross.

“(The camp is) a bunch of guys getting together, working hard, trying to get better at their craft  — offensive and defensive line, specifically,” Perkins said. “We were just in the last rep of the camp, and I was pass blocking, and the guy I was pass blocking cut back and I planted. I was too far out of my outside of my shoulders, and I just stepped wrong and, snap, I felt a pop.”

Perkins said it did not hurt initially, but his knee ballooned with swelling soon after the pop.

Fortunately, Gross tore his ACL during his football career, and helped guide Perkins through the emotions, feelings and expectations.

“He’s (Gross) been super great throughout the process, supporting me and talking to me about it, and he came down and saw me while I was in recovery the first couple weeks after I was out of surgery,” Perkins said. “He’s just been reaching out periodically.”

An ACL (anterior cruciate ligament) tear requires surgery, and recovery takes anywhere from six to nine months and includes an intense rehabilitation process.

Folsom and Perkins had started their recovery when Beck tore her ACL during the first game of the summer soccer season against Mt. Blue.

“I had the ball and I was going towards the goal,” Beck said. “Some girl came, and I think we both collided, and my leg went, I guess, a way that it shouldn’t have gone. She landed on top of me, and that’s basically how it happened.”

As soon as she got off the field, Beck said her mind was racing, thinking about how badly she did not want to sit out of her final season of high school soccer.

TEAMWORK REHAB

Folsom, Perkins and Beck all said they knew an ACL tear was serious, but their familiarity with the recovery process varied. The silver lining has been that they’ve been able to rely on each other.

“So, Bear and Izzy both had their injuries a while before me, so definitely when mine happened, if I thought something was wrong, I would rely on Izzy and Bear,” Beck said. “I’ll text them to be like, ‘Is this normal, blah, blah, blah,’ and it was nice just knowing that I have two people to go to that I can talk to.”

Winthrop athletic director and football coach Joel Stoneton said that the school’s athletic trainer, Sam Farago, has been an invaluable resource to the three recovering athletes.

“What’s great about Sam, for me, personally, as a coach and an athletic director, is that we follow her lead,” Stoneton said. “She knows what she’s doing, she’s connected with the doctor, she gets quick results for the kids and she’s realistic about the results.

“In my opinion, she’s not only an athletic trainer, she’s a psychologist. She’s a trainer, in this sense of a physical trainer, that she’s getting these kids rehabbed. So, we’re very blessed to have her.”

Progress for the athletes has been incremental, and they cling to hope that they’ll be able to help their teams this fall.

Barrett Perkins, left, Maddy Beck, center, and Izzy Folsom show off the knee braces they had to wear after they sustained ACL tears. The three Winthrop seniors no longer need to wear the braces but are still waiting to be cleared to return to game play. Andree Kehn/Sun Journal

Folsom has been able to contribute a little. Early in the field hockey season, she was cleared to substitute into games for penalty strokes only. The first time she did, against Mountain Valley, she was wearing someone else’s mouth guard and felt discombobulated after missing the team bus ride for a doctor’s appointment. Yet, she still scored a goal.

“I go out on the field and stuff, and (the team) is walking me through it,” Folsom said. “I go to take the stroke, and I’m just so unfocused. I took the stroke, it was not my best stroke, but it went in, thankfully.”

STILL INVOLVED

Stoneton, Winthrop field hockey coach Melissa Perkins (no relation to Bear Perkins) and girls soccer coach Joe Menice have different levels of experience coaching athletes through ACL tears. Stoneton said he’s experienced it many times during his 11-year coaching career, but it was an unfamiliar experience for Menice and Melissa Perkins.

All three coaches have made adaptations so the three seniors still feel a part of their teams. Folsom gets to act as the “warm-up police,” she said, which has solidified her desire to study sports medicine in college in pursuit of a career as an athletic trainer.

“She’s really interested in strength and conditioning, and she is also a track star, so she’s been working with the girls on increasing speed, strength, agility, stretching, a lot of those drills,” Melissa Perkins said. “It’s really nice, because I have 25 girls, so that’s a lot to handle. If there’s specific things, I can send them over to Izzy and she can talk with them, show them whatever that skill is.”

Folsom has helped the top-seeded Ramblers to an unbeaten record (15-0) heading into Friday’s Class C South field hockey semifinal against Spruce Mountain (9-6).

Menice said every day during the season he treats Beck more and more like a coach.

“For example … we had a nice win at home, and I turned to my assistant and said, ‘Great win, coach,’” Menice said. “I turned to Maddy and also said, ‘Great win, coach.’ So I definitely do treat her as a leader, coach kind of role, whether in practice or games, because she’s always there helping out with whatever.”

He added that her senior leadership has been crucial, especially since the Winthrop girls soccer program is so young in its first year back as a stand-alone program after being in a co-op with Monmouth the past several years. Beck was one of four seniors on the rebooted Ramblers — along with one junior, one sophomore and 16 freshmen — who went 8-7 and reached the C South quarterfinals.

Stoneton said that when he was a younger coach, he would “just try to be positive,” but he eventually realized that when it comes to long-term injuries, a coach can actually overdo the positivity.

“You just have to let them feel it, you have to sort of let them feel supported,” Stoneton said. “There’s just really no words, you wish you had a magic wand that could change everything, as silly as it sounds, but you can’t.”

That’s why he’s made sure Bear Perkins still has a role on the team, describing Bear as an “irreplaceable player,” in a game that dictates there always be “a next guy up.”

“Number one, he’s a ‘Yes, coach; no, coach,’ guy, but he’s (also) very physically gifted for what he does for his size, and he moves well,” Stoneton said. “He’s very smart, he has a very high football IQ. So, losing him, our chest deflated a little bit.”

Bear has been working with the offensive and defensive linemen, which is where he played for the Ramblers, who earned the No. 2 seed in the Class D South football playoffs and have a bye this week.

“Not a lot of kids are mature enough like Barrett that you can actually put them in that role where they’re, in a sense, a step above their players, but they respect him so much that he does it in such a way that it’s never a put-down or derogatory,” Stoneton said. “He’s got a great career in coaching, if that’s what he wants to do. He’s always positive and brings kids along.”

LESSONS LEARNED

Melissa Perkins said that she has learned from watching Folsom go through an ACL tear about the importance of valuing an individual athlete as a person over the outcomes of games.

“I never once thought of what it meant to the team losing her,” Melissa Perkins said. “I thought about what it meant to her, but it never crossed my mind what it meant to the team, because that’s secondary to what it meant to her.”

Bear Perkins said this injury has made him a better teammate, despite the mental and emotional struggles he faces daily as he grapples with his inability to step onto the field.

“It’s been tough at some points, I want to get out there in the worst way, but I feel like I’m able to help the younger players out more,” Bear Perkins said. “Now that I’m at more of a coach’s position, I’m able to help them out more and give them that extra bump that I think they need and help the next generation get better.”

Stoneton said it’s been especially tough to watch Bear go through this, because he’s at the point in his recovery that he’s running and lifting in the gym and feels physically capable, but is not cleared to return to play. Yet.

“You just give him a quick hug and say, ‘We love you and we’re glad you’re here with us,’” Stoneton said. “We made a promise to each other, we made a covenant, that I’m going to get us to the playoffs and he’s going to get better so he can have that time to play.”

Stoneton said that community members expressed concern that three athletes tore their ACLs so close together, and that it could be linked to the new turf field facility at Winthrop Grade School that the Ramblers began playing on last fall. Stoneton, though, noted that all three injuries happened at different fields.

Beck said she’s learned the importance of relying on others, and being dedicated to her physical therapy sessions.

“Definitely do what (doctors and athletic trainers) say, like, do your PT, do all your exercises, because that’s the only way it’s going to get better,” Beck said. “If you don’t, your knee is just going to stiffen up.”

She added that it’s important to remember that things will get better, and that support from teammates is crucial. Bear Perkins agreed.

“The support that I got from this community, my family, this team is like my family — just overwhelming,” Bear Perkins said. “Couldn’t ask for a better place to be from, and a better program to be part of.”