Abby Steiner Finds Her Groove Again At OHSAA Championships After ACL Injury

Jun 06, 2017

The last thing on Abby Steiner's mind was running a personal best.

In fact, the moment the Dublin Coffman (OH) High School junior on Saturday heard the stadium announcer declare, "In Lane 4 … we could have a potential 3-time state champion in the 100m and 200m," Steiner knew her objective was a direct march to the finish line in first.

Because at that point, after the ACL tear 10 months prior and all the rehabilitation that came afterward, it wasn't so much about time.

 It was about the moment.

"All I thought when I was on the line was, 'I want to get that,'" Steiner said.

And that she did, registering an 11.61 second 100m dash win on Saturday at the Ohio High School Athletic Association Division I Track and Field Championships.

Steiner's victory in the 100m, where she set a state and meet record in the preliminaries in a US No. 17 time of 11.59 seconds, became one of two individual titles on the day, and a third came later in a crazy chase down in the 4x200.

Later on, she won in the 200m, setting yet another state and meet record in a US No. 14 time of 23.56.

"This one was the most meaningful for me," said Steiner, who's committed to the University of Kentucky, where she'll double in women's soccer and track and field.

The wins also added to Steiner's already impressive resume: She now has five individual outdoor state championships in Ohio's largest classification and two relay wins in the 4x200 -- and let's not forget five indoor state titles in the 60m and 200m, too.

But track and field, if we're being fair, isn't Steiner's first love. That honor goes to soccer, which she's been playing since she was just a young child.

"That was all I knew until middle school, when I tried track," Steiner said.

She committed to the Wildcats as a sophomore; largely, she has been competing in national events for her club team for years.

Last year, however, she endured perhaps the most difficult period of her athletic career.

While at a national camp in Oregon last July, Steiner tore her ACL. The outside defender and forward made one of her go-to moves, which is a plant and cut with the ball, and slipped in new cleats.

"It sounded like someone took a stick and broke it across my leg," Steiner said.

The camp was over. Steiner, whose knee swelled up significantly, had to fly back home immediately.

"They got me into surgery on August 9," Steiner said. "And then after that, they wrapped it in an Ace bandage and put a brace on it, which was pretty close to a full leg brace. And they locked it so you couldn't move your leg."

Four months later, Steiner wondered whether she'd rehabilitate back to the fitness level she once was at. As a freshman, for instance, she had won state titles in the 100m in 11.89 seconds and in the 200m in 23.96. That carried over to her sophomore campaign, where she lowered her bests to 11.60 and 23.63.

Would Steiner be as fast after injury?

"Once I was able to run again, I trained in this anti-gravity machine and I would do interval workouts at physical therapy. I would do a lot of those, and I also started lifting, which I hadn't done before. I tried to get back my explosiveness."

She wasn't really sure until the end of the indoor season, where Steiner was forced to run on a sharp turn at The Spire.

"You have that adrenaline," she said. "I wasn't focused on my legs as much as I was focused on the race. I remember, I was scared to run on that curve. I knew it was so tight. I didn't know how I was going to handle it."

Steiner ran 25-flat in her first race back in the 200m.

"I think it was more mentally me trying to get past that," she said. "I wasn't confident at all."

But at indoor states, Steiner lowered her time to 24.23. She finished third in the 60m in 7.55.

Part of Steiner wasn't sure if she would regain the speed that made her so special on the track over her freshmen and sophomore outdoor seasons.

But in the spring, Steiner was back on the soccer field, too, where she gradually built back up to fitness with her club team.

By May, she was flying.

At the Ohio Capital Conference Championships, she went a career best 11.54 seconds in the 100m and dropped under 24 seconds in the 200m for the first time since 2016, going 23.98.

"I remember when that happened," Steiner said. "I said to my coach, 'Coach, I haven't ever done that before states.' That's when I started to get back to myself. I knew then it could be a really good season."

Steiner continued on that path at regions, going 11.71 and 23.78, then felt extremely ready for states.

What's interesting, though, is how Steiner responded in the 4x200. Taking the final baton with 200m to go, the junior was 30 meters behind the leader from Withrow.

Didn't matter.

"I would tell myself, I can do this," she said. "People are counting on me. I can come back and perform."

Steiner burst out of her drive phase and opened up on the curve, where she proceeded to pound the next 50 meters before hitting her top speed, with it flying by her competition in a US No. 30 time of 1:38.34 for her team.

The performance ultimately hit home, but Steiner knows there's more left in the tank.

"Because of the whole injury and the setback. All the hard work getting to where I used to be, this title meant a lot more then anything had in the past," she said.