Overcoming injury: Kress fights to get back

by Matthew Ondesko: Managing Editor

Photos: WNY Flash/Falconer/Cassadaga Valley/Maple Grove

Injuries are part of the game. Every athlete deals with some type of injury throughout their careers. Some are just the normal bumps and bruises, others could keep you out a long time.

As an athlete looks to bounce back from the set back that might be in front off of them, it’s not the physical part that is grueling, it’s the mental part. The training to get back to the form that they once were can take a toll on some.

For Kylie Kress missing time was not ideal. Kress missed time during the soccer season when she crashed into a goalkeeper. Unfortunately, for Kress, she came out the worse for her with sprained ligaments and bones bruises in her foot and toes. The injury knocked her out for the rest of the regular season, and what a regular season Kress was having.

In just 15 games, Kress had 11 goals and 4 assists for Falconer/Cassadaga Valley/Maple Grove. She was on pace to have a very special year before the injury happened. When the injury first happened Kress was in denial. She believed she could just play through the minor bumps and bruises of the season.

Then came the walking boot. The boot put a lot of things in perspective. There was no more denial, but rehab to help her get back on the pitch for a playoff run.

“About halfway through the season a goalie and I smashed into each other when she came out and I ended up spraining the ligaments and bruising bones in my foot and toes. I ended up in a boot and was out for the rest of the regular season,” stated Kress. “I was definitely in denial about it and mentally it was crushing me not being out there. Every practice that went by and every game that was on deck, I was telling myself I was going to play and I would be fine by the next game, but practice after practice and game after game went by and multiple ortho visits without anything really getting any better.”

Once reality set in, Kress went back to work. She just didn’t want to be the same player before she incurred in the injury, she wanted to be a better version. So, Kress was doing her therapy before and after school.

Kress wanted to get back on the pitch as fast as possible, but the explosion wasn’t there. She wanted to be 100 percent for the playoffs but she knew is was going to take time to get back to where she wanted to be.

It was mentality frustrating at times, but Kress just kept pushing herself.

“I was doing therapies at home in the morning, after school and at night and going out back to do some wall work. Just getting my foot back into a cleat was painful so every day I would wrap it to protect that bone and pad my touches and start to work on increasing reps and putting more and more pressure on the ligaments,” stated Kress. “I’ve been pushing myself mentally and physically to get back to the speed and physicality that I’m used to playing with, and although I’m still not there 100%, every day feels like an improvement.”

Playing all the time Kress wasn’t used sitting on the sidelines. Like any athlete not being able to play is gut wrenching and that’s how Kress felt. She had set not only team goals but individual goals for herself during her junior year.

With Kress on the sidelines, those individual goals where going by the wayside. That wasn’t easy for her to come to grips with. The championship goals were still in front of her. But, at the times, Kress didm;t know if she was going to be able to get back on the pitch to her teammates out.

Since getting on the pitch for the first time at the age of 5, Kress never had a major injury that kept her out of games. She just played through everything that she could play through. At times, Kress had that sense of feeling lost - not knowing exactly what to do as her teammates were competing every day.

“I did know though that on top of me not being there for my team, that missing half the season was also going to put me out of the running for so many personal goals that I had set for myself for my junior season and my high school career overall,” stated Kress. “So as I watched those goals slip away game by game during such an important season, it was really hard not to let it drain me mentally and so I just pushed harder and harder to get back. I definitely realized that being ‘healthy’ was something that I was probably taking for granted.”

Kress has prided herself on being there for her teammates every day, every game. So, when she went down she didn’t know how to handle it. It made her realize that everything she has worked for could be taken away in an instant.

It also made her realize just how competitive she is. Her poor coaches took the brunt of Kress being inured. She would stand next to them and talk strategy and watch the game from a different perspective.

“It's the scariest and most stressful thing to think that something you’ve worked your whole life toward can be taken away in an instant, so it really made me reflect on the things that are priority. Another thing I realized about myself is how crazy competitive I am,” stated Kress. “My coaches know my fight and how passionate I am about competing, almost to a fault. I want to win and I don’t give up. I’ve been a part of too many games where we were down and out where it seemed like there was no way and been able to pull out the W. I think I drove them nuts through my injury because I couldn’t sit down during the games and would stand right by them, talking strategy, watching how we were moving and attacking and just wanting to be out there so bad cheering everyone on. They yelled at me a couple of times for literally going out on the field during warm ups in my boot trying to get in on something with just my left foot.”

When Kress finally did get back on the field she had a small window to get ready for the Section VI Championship game. The game was about eight days from the time she stepped back on the pitch.

There was a lot of pain still, but Kress wasn’t going to allow that to be a problem. She could feel her speed coming back and she was chomping at the bit to help her team. A side not to this game was the fact the game was against Allegheny, the team she got her against earlier in the season.

Kress knew this game was going to be physical, and that’s exactly how it played out.

“The Section VI Championship game was only about eight days into being back on the field, so I definitely was still in a lot of pain physically, but I felt my speed coming back and I was trusting my shot and I just kept telling myself that this win was ours to take, we were strong in all phases and with everyone else doing their part, that if we were going to win that game it would be on the offense to put one in the net against a really good defense that knows us really well and how we play,” stated Kress. “We had some nice quick passes up top and I was able to just take a one touch shot and that became the golden goal of the game.T hat game was very physical and it always is when we play Allegheny. The last time we played them was the game I was injured in, so to have this come back full circle, for me to make it back for playoffs and win the game 1-0 against them as a team was everything.”

Before the injury, Kress was on pace for 20 plus goals. She is a dynamic player and uses her speed to either score goals or set them up. She has become a very tough player to play against, because she is an all around forward.

If you think you are going to stop her from scoring, she will just dish it off to one of teammates. It makes it hard for opposing coaches to game plan against her.

“Over the years I have been the lead goal scorer, but I’ve had a lot of assists as well, which speaks directly to the abilities of the other players on the team too. We knew going in that this would be a tough season because everyone told us all off season that they were working on their defense to specifically shut down certain players,” stated Kress. :When you have a solid defense and midfield that can also attack where there is opportunity, it helps you stay in control up top and we trust each other to make a play. You can see early on in the game how the other team plans to defend, so I use my speed and gaps in the defense to either break through and rip a shot off or draw in as many defenders as I can to free up a teammate and send the ball in for them to finish. A lot of times we knew going in that I was going be man marked by multiple players and that we would need to capitalize on that and any mistakes the defense made.”

As a goalscorer, Kress just tries to keep a clear head. She knows there is pressure on her every game to score goals. That’s what strikers do, they score goals. But, Kress tries to keep all the outside noise off the pitch.

When she gets on the pitch, Kress clears her mind and keeps her head down with her goals firmly in front of her. This is why she is the type of goalscorer that she is.

“As a goal scorer, my mindset when I step onto the pitch is just to keep a clear head, visualize beating the goalie, staying resilient, having a good touch and quick feet, use my speed everywhere that I can, and to stay composed,” stated Kress. “As a striker, it’s hard to not beat yourself up about a missed chance or a shot you wish you could have moved a few inches over or picked the other corner, but I’ve learned to really put those things out of my mind ahead of and during games and just stay confident and know that I’m GOING to beat that player, make a great cross, beat the goalie, pick the right corner or get my head on it. You can’t let the other noise creep in and you have to stay confident, even immediately after a mistake or it can sink you quick in a game. The pressure is always on and I always feel it as a forward/striker, so I guess it’s just whether you rise up to meet it or let it get to you. I definitely think I play better when the pressure is on.”

For Kress there is no offseason, while the high school has been over for a couple of months now, the Western New York Flash season has begun. That means training a couple days a week as they get ready for ECNL games and tournaments.

It also means making the long commute to Elma three days a week. When she isn;t doing Flash, Kress is running track in the spring for her high school team. So, for her, there really isn;t an offseason - just off days here and there.

“To be honest, I don’t really have an off season. My varsity season overlaps with my ECNL season with Flash, so through play offs, I would go straight from school to varsity practice, leave varsity a little early to drive an hour and a half out to practice with Flash in Buffalo and then drive back home in the dark doing my homework. The three hour commute during the school week can get really bad once winter comes and take much longer than that. Our first ECNL games start this month and our showcases start the week after Thanksgiving,” explained Kress. “I practice three nights a week out in Buffalo and we are peak season with Flash all through winter and spring with workouts all along the way both with and without Trainers. This past Spring I decided to run track just to supplement soccer and stay sharp with speed, explosiveness and endurance and actually qualified for Invitationals my very first race and placed in a bunch of sprints throughout the season in Invitationals, Super 8s and Sectionals which was pretty fun. We only have a couple of weeks off after our Flash season ends in June and before ECNL summer sessions start which run into August, overlapping with the start of our Varsity season. In addition to all of that, I train with a couple teammates on strength training and some private sessions, so I don’t really get any time off over the course of the year. It’s always preparing for the next season and they all overlap.”

With her junior year in the rearview mirror, Kress is knee deep in recruiting. She has learned a lot about herself during this time, She has learned she needs to be able to talk about herself more and sell herself to the coaching staffs.

Everyone can see the tape, and know she will be a welcomed addition to any college soccer program. But, the coaches want to know more about the person, and what makes them tick.

“Going through the recruiting process so far I have learned that I need to get more comfortable on the phone and more comfortable with talking about myself to coaches that I’m just talking to for the first time.It can be really intimidating and it’s so hard to really get your personality across through a phone conversation, especially because I definitely am someone that never talks on the phone,” explained Kress. “The more calls that I do, the easier it gets, but it’s still nerve wracking. It really makes you feel good when the day the D1 coaches can start reaching out you start getting texts and calls and just hearing what they like about your play and how they see you fitting into their team, where they’ve watched you play. It really makes all of the years of hard work feel like it’s paying off and the right people are noticing. To answer the second part of the question, if I had to say what I’ve learned about my game play from the recruitment process so far is that the most interest has come from my speed, physicality and grit when it comes to my offense and scoring. It’s a lot more overwhelming than I ever imagined it being and it is such a huge life decision and so many things to consider."