In the early minutes of the 2021 season opener, against San Francisco State, Point Loma Nazarene women’s midfielder Mackenzie Kimmel walked off the field in search of ice, after making contact with an opposing player.

Her legs were swept out from under her and her knee extended into the air.

After redshirting the previous lost Covid season, as a transfer from the Air Force Academy, she didn’t want to believe it, but deep down she knew what the injury was.

“As a female soccer player your mind instantly goes there,” Kimmel said over the phone while stepping away from her desk for a few minutes, while at her engineering internship with Tandem Diabetes. “I tried to stay optimistic but of course, the MRIs don’t lie.”

The next day her fears were confirmed. Kimmel had suffered a torn ACL.

“It is one of the lengthiest [recovery] injuries you see in women’s sports and unfortunately it is very common,” Kimmel said.

And just like that, another season would be lost.

“I had a good support system with another teammate who was going through the same injury,” she said. “The recovery process taught me a lot. Day-in-day-out you can choose to show up and that’s what I had to do to see a potential for getting back on the field.”

“You probably wouldn’t even know it was difficult – that’s how she carried herself,” PLNU women’s soccer, head coach, Kristi Kiely said. “She was tremendous in that.”

Kimmel, a 2018 graduate of Eastlake High School, helped lead the school to back-to-back CIF Championships as a junior and senior. In 2017, she was named the team’s Most Valuable Player. In 2018, she was the Eastlake High Female Scholar Athlete of the Year.

In two seasons at Air Force, she appeared in 20 matches, starting three.

“She wanted to come back home and get a chance to play,” Kiely said. “It just kind of fit – we had the environment she was looking for.”

“I grew up in a Christian house – being able to pursue my faith in a community of amazing people and good soccer, felt like God was opening a door for me and I just had to step through it,” Kimmel added.

Tearing an ACL in the opening minutes of the season was hardly the homecoming she expected.

After having reconstructive surgery and going through the arduous rehab process, Kimmel was back on the field last season.

“Two years off is a long time,” Kiely said. “I think last fall was the most difficult moment. She was in a leadership position but hadn’t played a meaningful match [for us]. She was coming back from injury with expectations.”

“You try to tell yourself ‘I am going to go 100 percent into tackles,’” Kimmel added. “But the second you are thrown back into a 50-50 ball you find yourself shying away from contact. You have to force yourself back into a difficult battle because if you don’t you won’t recover or become confident again.”

Kimmel, then a redshirt senior, appeared in 18 games during the 2022 season, starting nine. It was bumpy, but not without high points. On Sept. 10, five years after leaving Eastlake, she knocked through her first collegiate goal against Cal State San Bernardino; a right-footed shot that found the bottom left corner of the net, in the game’s seventh minute.

“Getting back on the field last year was a mental hurdle,” Kimmel said. “But it was also an achievement – seeing something through and persevering through that challenge.”

This season – as a graduate student in the organizational leadership program – in her sixth year of college soccer, Kimmel finds herself as PLNU’s elder stateswoman and lone player in their final year of eligibility.

“You have to go through things to get better, have answers, and be more complete,” Kiely said. “Kenzie is a lead-by-example type – and she is wonderful at that.”

“I’m not always the loudest player on the field but I try to set the tone through my work rate,” Kimmel added. “From an older perspective, I feel grateful to be able to watch the younger players start their journey.”

Both Kimmel and Kiely agreed that she has been more confident on the field through the Sea Lions first five games.

“This year I feel physically confident again,” Kimmel said. “I’ve been playing out wide on the winger and also attacking mid, I think tactically it’s been good to learn and know our game-model style and how to bring others into that style. I feel more prepared.”

Kimmel is playing an important role for the Sea Lions, coming off their first season in the previous four, not winning the PacWest title.

“She is getting closer to being fully back,” Kiely said. “She is a heck of an athlete – but some of the other areas of the game have taken some time. I am so thankful she has given us her fifth year. I think she is playing well right now.”

One day shy of exactly a year later, Kimmel notched her second career goal in a 2-0 win over Cal State San Marcos.

Looking toward her future, Kimmel said she wants to find a career that blends her undergraduate degree in mechanical engineering with her graduate degree in organizational leadership.

As far as soccer goes, when PLNU walks off the field for the final time this season, Kimmel expects to close the book on her involvement in the game.

“It has been a windy road but a shaping journey as far as character and play,” Kimmel said. “I’m just focused on this season and this group of girls and I am really excited to see how we blend together and attack the season.”