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Emma Tyrrell blacked out when she tore her ACL last April.

Just days before Syracuse’s game against No. 1 North Carolina, Emma cut past a defender in practice, but hyperextended her knee in the process. The move caused a full tear of her left ACL as well as bone bruises on her femur and tibia. She said the sound of the tear was the last thing she remembers.

“I just don’t know what happened,” Emma said. “I just heard a loud noise, but then I really don’t remember. Apparently, I was just in pain.”

At the time, Emma ranked first on the team in assists (20), third in goals (30) and third in points (50). By the end of the season, despite missing nine games, she still ranked third in points.

The Orange were 10-2 when Emma went down. Syracuse lost to UNC 14-12 the next day and went 5-4 without Emma to finish 15-6. SU missed several other key playmakers down the stretch, including Sierra Cockerille, who also tore her ACL last season. But the joint rehabilitation process brought the two closer together. Emma’s availability to start the 2023 season was in question at the time of the injury, but she recovered ahead of schedule.

This season, the team is 6-0 and Emma’s back to full health. She ranks third on the team in goals, fourth in points and has played in every game. Emma said she feels even stronger than she did pre-injury.

“I think, from just watching myself compared to last year, I think I look a lot stronger, faster than I did, which I’m grateful for,” Emma said.

Relearning how to walk isn’t something Emma ever expected to do. For two weeks after the injury, she couldn’t put pressure on her left leg. Three weeks of crutches ensued, and Emma wasn’t medically cleared to move on her own during that time.

Once she regained feeling in her leg, she started walking. Then, she started going up stairs.

“You know, all the fun stuff,” Emma said, jokingly. “Basic motors.”

By that point, Emma went home for surgery. There, she worked with long-time trainer Henry Bush. Emma started with easy exercises to strengthen the muscles while not further harming her knee bruises.

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Everyday, she would get up, go to physical therapy for two hours, then go back home. She said it was grueling to be weighed down with an injury that didn’t allow her to be with the team.

When she went back to school in the fall — four months after the injury — she was cleared to run, but not on solid ground. Emma started running in an anti-gravity machine, zipping up in an inflatable stabilizer that allowed her to run without putting pressure on her knee. She described it as “weightless” and “very odd,” but it helped her get comfortable with the motion again.

That’s when she started working with Cockerille, who tore her right ACL in the fifth game of last season against Northwestern. Their injuries occurred almost exactly one month apart, and Cockerille said the two were fully cleared around the same time. Their rehab practices merged for the final few months.

“Once you head off and actually move your leg on your own, our recovery kind of meshed to one and I tore mine first, so I had to be positive for (Emma) and let her know that she could lean on me if she needed to,” Cockerille said.

Emma began running on ground six months after her injury. Her basic motor skills had returned to prior form and she needed to re-establish muscle memory in her knee.

She progressed each week, starting to dodge, cut, stop short and decelerate. Eventually, Emma was fully fit to return about a month before the 2023 season started.

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“We’ve definitely gotten a lot closer,” Emma said of her relationship with Cockerille. “We both did that together and it just really has made our connection super strong.”

Currently, Emma and Cockerille both rank in the top six for SU in goals and points, and the two said they came back feeling stronger after recovery.

“They put in a lot of work together, and it’s been pretty cool to see them flourish coming back,” head coach Kayla Treanor said of Emma and Cockerille. “They really developed into much better leaders, so that’s been exciting to watch.”

Cockerille only missed two games because of her surgery before returning to the sidelines, supporting her team even when she couldn’t support her own weight. When Cockerille came back to practice, she immediately asked coaches if she could throw passes to her teammates, just to be involved.

Emma, on the other hand, received treatment and continued her recovery at home in Mount Sinai, New York. She watched from afar as Meaghan Tyrrell – her older sister – completed a career year with 78 goals, ranking sixth in the nation, and became a Tewaaraton Award finalist. But despite her success, Meaghan missed her longest-tenured teammate.

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“It’s so huge for me, and the team I think, to have Emma back out there,” Meaghan said after SU’s season-opening win over Northwestern. “She knows how to cut through spaces and dive on people… having her mindset back out there, too, is huge.”

The last time Northwestern faced Syracuse, Emma watched from home, and the Wildcats made quick work of the Orange, winning 15-4 in the 2022 NCAA Tournament quarterfinals. But this time — the 2023 season-opener against Northwestern — Emma was a catalyst for the SU offense.

Starting the game on the bench as a precaution, Emma’s entrance handed Syracuse the momentum. She scored a go-ahead goal in the second quarter on a feed from Meaghan, which gave SU the lead until late in the third.

On the wing of the 12-meter, Meaghan saw Emma cut inside the defensive zone and nestle into a vacant pocket. Meaghan zipped the ball to her, and she took a few uncontested steps before scoring for the first time in almost a year to make it 4-3 Syracuse. Emma scored three times in the win, and two of them were assisted by Meaghan.

“(Meaghan) would say, ‘I’m being selfish, but I want you to get better so you can come back and play with me one last time,’” Emma said.

Published on March 7, 2023 at 10:35 pm

Contact Wyatt: wbmiller@syr.edu