On the eve of spring break, during a practice drill, Carmel boys lacrosse player Mikey Recktenwall took a bad step as he slid toward a defender.
It forced him down to the ground. The top of his left knee rotated over the bottom part. There was no sound of a pop, but the pain was excruciating.
A few days had passed before Recktenwall got a phone call with the results of his MRI.
Torn ACL.
“I couldn’t even process it,” Recktenwall said. “I started crying. Lacrosse is everything to me and I really thought my season was done for.”
Recktenwall immediately called Carmel coach Keith Allen and wept. His knee condition initially derailed his final high school season. An injury that warranted surgery and would force him to watch from the sidelines.
While Recktenwall was reeling, Allen name-dropped Jordan Walker, a 2019 Carmel graduate who played through a torn ACL. That was a beacon of hope for Recktenwall.
“I let him know that this may not be the end,” Allen said. “This is his senior year, he is not going to play in college, so he was obviously upset … Mikey went and talked to his doctors and his mom and figured out if there’s a possibility that he can play.”
Recktenwall pushed back surgery and rehab. Injury exile was no match for his will. Time was ticking down on his playing career, while the Greyhounds’ championship window was wide open. Carmel last won a state title in 2023, and was runner-up in the last two championship games.
Recktenwall wants to help the Greyhounds reach the mountaintop again.
After he tore his ACL, he returned to the field and played 12 games in limited action. The team leader in ground balls has helped the Greyhounds go 14-2 this season.
“I was back playing the game I love and I was flying around,” Recktenwall said. “Now I’ve got my $1,000 brace and I’m having a great time. We’ll do surgery whenever it’s needed but right now, I’m just focused on helping the team, obviously, get to our final goal of winning a state championship.”
Recktenwall feels no pain in his knee. He said he’s had loose ligaments all his life and his body can adapt to it. He hits legs twice a week as a part of his strength training, including leg press, hamstring curl and leg extension. He also follows a list of exercises from the school trainers that he will do before practice and after every game. It activates the supporting muscles around his knee. He will rest, ice and elevate his knee while also keying in on range of motion.
He has shrugged at the adversity thrown at him. He walks around and forgets that he has a torn ACL. It is not a big deal to his psyche.
“Whenever I’m playing lacrosse, I’m overwhelmed with joy and excitement, so I really don’t have time for fear,” Recktenwall said. “I’m a lot more focused on my footwork when I’m playing defense, just making sure that my steps are sound and I’m not flying around with reckless abandonment … Obviously, I don’t want to get more injured but I’m very confident with my knee and luckily my legs are very strong so my muscles can support them.”
Recktenwall’s willpower has been tested, even before his ACL triumph. He quit soccer and started lacrosse late in his sophomore year. He took one glimpse at a Carmel varsity game and was hooked. He bought a stick and started his ascension up the high school playing brass.
He was a junior varsity player that encountered naysayers, the kind that didn’t believe in his dream of being a varsity starter. That doubt ticked off Recktenwall. He believed in his game and wanted to be taken seriously.
About two years later, he made believers out of skeptics. He committed to the grind and earned a spot as a midfielder on the Greyhounds’ varsity squad. That journey is why it meant so much for him to keep his senior season intact.
“I think he’s very hard-working,” said Recktenwall’s senior teammate, Ike Stitle. “Not everything is given to him. He started late; he had to work for his position. Things still don’t always go his way. I think he just loves the team so much that even if he knew he wasn’t playing, he would still be happy to be there every day and just have fun,”
Recktenwall, who has played in 12 of Carmel’s 16 games this season, has played limited reps with his ACL tear, like a pitcher on a pitch count. According to MaxPreps, he is ranked second on the team in faceoffs won (80) and third in ground balls (37).
He’s a warrior in faceoffs, the kind that likes to make it a ground-ball battle and give the team possession. He relieves the pressure of that role by focusing on his teammates next to him.
His playing time has slowly increased with each game played. Last Wednesday, he participated in his first full practice with the team, a sign that he will be more involved in game action.
“We’ve ripped off the band-aid and we’re going to use him as much as we can now,” Allen said. “There’s another player that takes face-offs as well. He and Mikey will be our two-headed threat in that area and we’re going ride Mikey as much as we can.
“I tell the boys that a face-off is like a puzzle to solve and he does that really well … He really has honed his craft and is not just a one-dimensional guy where he can just do one move. He’s got a bag of tricks that he can pull out on the faceoffs, and he’s become a student of the game.”
Recktenwall said he won’t play lacrosse at the college level. He admits that he won’t be an athlete for a great team like Carmel again, so it was a no-brainer for him to play through injury when it became an option. The Greyhounds’ brotherhood was also a driving force through the setback.
He wants to contribute more minutes and do his most damage by the opening round of the playoffs, which starts on Saturday. On one ACL, he’s cherishing the final weeks of his playing career before it fades to black.
“The team means so much more to me than my knee health,” Recktenwall said. “I want to be there for the team and help them out … Hopefully this will be some history winning a state championship on an ACL and getting the job done, regardless of what has happened with my body.”
Marc Ray is a high school sports reporter at the IndyStar. He can be reached at marc.ray@indystar.com , and on X, formerly Twitter, at @themarcszn.
This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Torn ACL, no problem. Carmel lacrosse senior Mikey Recktenwall plays through injury
Reporting by Marc Ray, Indianapolis Star / Indianapolis Star
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
