Out but not down

Hatfield still can't sprint, cut or twist on the knee.

"It's more like a mental thing," she said. "You have to know your leg is better."

As Hatfield gets close to returning to the soccer field, her younger sister Heather is in the beginning stages of rehab for a torn ACL suffered against Timpanogos.

"The weird thing with my sister was that everybody said she sprained it," Jamie Hatfield said. "It's hard work to come back, but she can do it if she really wants to."

The physical rehab is no easy task. Hours of bike riding, leg squats, jogging in a pool can become tedious. As players go through the recovery process, watching their team play can be difficult.

"I get chills when something good happens," Harmon said. "I wish I could be out there. That's the hardest part, not playing."

Hatfield concurred: "Knowing you can be out there doing something is hard and kind of frustrating."

Hatfield is still a key part of the team. Roth has turned her all-state player into an assistant coach.

"We think the same and see the same things on the field," Hatfield said.

Hatfield doesn't want to be sharing insights on the bench much longer. She wants to play. As she prepares to return to the soccer field, she now understands how other athletes who have suffered the injury feel.

"You hear about people tearing their ACL all the time but you never know how it is," she said. "Now I just have sympathy for all of them."