High School Soccer Player Comes Back from 2 Season-Ending Knee Injuries

Two years in a row, serious knee injuries kept Lilah Sollott on the sidelines, so she was determined to make it back for her final year of soccer at Allentown Central Catholic High School.

Thanks to the team at Lehigh Valley Orthopedic Institute, part of Jefferson Health, she not only got back on the field during her senior year, she also helped carry her team to playoff victory.

“Being out those two years in a row was just the hardest thing ever,” says the 17-year-old Center Valley athlete, who has been playing soccer since she was four years old. 

In her first injury, Sollott suffered a torn anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) in her right knee that put her out of commission for her sophomore year of soccer. “I was just going for a tackle and I planted my right leg and it kind of buckled and I collapsed,” Sollott says. “It was really painful.”

The ACL connects the thigh bone (femur) to the shin bone (tibia). Think of it as a connector strap that prevents the knee from rotating or bending too far. It can tear when there is too much force in one direction or another, as sometimes can happen while playing soccer.

After surgery and nine months of rehabilitation, she had the same injury in her left knee, ending her hopes of playing in her junior year. 

“It was the last game of our season, and down to the last five minutes, and I was just full-on sprinting and all of I sudden I felt a snap and heard a very loud noise,” she says. 

Both injuries happened during club soccer, a springtime league in which top players stay sharp for their varsity high school season in the fall.

Both times, Lilah and her family turned to Wayne Luchetti, MD, an orthopedic surgeon who is well known throughout the region for repairing serious knee injuries and getting young athletes back on the field.

“I treat every kid as though they are my own,” says Dr. Luchetti, who estimates he has done about 2,000 ACL repairs in his 30-plus years of practice. 

“We have a great team here at Lehigh Valley Orthopedic Institute,” he says. “I want to make sure everyone, from the athlete to the surgeon to the trainer to the therapist, is on the same page every step of the way, to support the athletes mentally and physically.”

Which brings us to the second key element of Sollott’s successful journey back to the soccer field after back-to-back injuries – physical therapist Katie Drayton at LVHN Rehabilitation Services–1621 N. Cedar Crest.

Drayton is well known for motivating her patients to do the hard work – physical and mental – over nine months to come back successfully from a torn ACL. “Dr. Luchetti calls Katie the ACL whisperer,” says Sollott’s mom, Tina. 

“She’s really awesome,” Dr. Luchetti says of Drayton. “She’s one of the best physical therapists I know, and she has great success with ACLs.”

There’s one more important consideration in the delicate work of getting an athlete back on the field. It’s only natural for a young person to want to return as soon as possible, especially with a nine-month recovery time. Dr. Luchetti says his team is sympathetic but won’t be swayed: “We won’t release them to return to sports until they are safe to play.”

In Sollott’s case, Dr. Luchetti used tendons harvested from her quadriceps, the large muscles in the front of the thigh, to repair her ACLs. “There are a number of places you can get tissue for this surgery,” he says, “including from cadavers. Part of the success is knowing which is best for each particular case.”

With her surgeries and rehabs behind her, Sollott reached her goal of playing with the team during her senior year. And soon, the Central Catholic girls found themselves in the East Penn Conference playoffs.

“The Easton playoff game was huge for us,” Sollott recalls, “and I scored the first goal.” She also got interviewed for the next day’s newspaper, and the headline said it all: “Sollott is back after 2 torn ACLs, helps Central Catholic girls soccer beat Easton.”

 “It was just the most amazing moment ever,” she says. “It was rewarding to me to be back and with my team. I can’t even explain how good it felt.”