The Davenport native is getting back on the field after taking a redshirt injury year.

By Courtney Baumann
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“Fake it till you make it” has been Rose Ripslinger’s motto since she tore her ACL right before her freshman campaign was supposed to start.

Now, one year and nearly two months later, Ripslinger is donning No. 15 on the soccer pitch once again.

The redshirt freshman has come a long way since her injury last year.

The day it happened was Aug. 11, 2014, in Muscatine. Ripslinger went one way; her knee went the other. She knew right away what had happened. The season had not even begun.

“I’ve seen a couple people tear theirs, and I’ve heard people say, ‘You’ll feel a pop,’ ” Ripslinger said. “I kind of felt a pop, plus I was in excruciating pain. I just knew.”

Intuition did not keep the Davenport native from having a small glimmer of hope that maybe — just maybe — it was something else.

It wasn’t.

With the news, Ripslinger broke down. However, it did not take long for the switch in her head to flip to positivity.

She could have easily given up along the way, but she kept pushing. The encouragement from her family, friends, and teammates did not hurt, either.

“There were a lot of ups and downs, but I learned very quickly that you need to be positive … otherwise you’re just going to wilt into nothing,” she said. “It was what it was, and I couldn’t change it, so I had to push through it.”

Head coach Dave DiIanni also continued to be positive about Ripslinger’s situation.

Redshirting Ripslinger allowed her to gain one more year of eligibility, one more year of interacting with the coaches, one more year to get stronger, and one more year of college experience.

The biggest thing, DiIanni said, is making sure everyone rallies together to create a support group.

“It’s a trying time because you invest so much in this experience … so you just want it to go well,” he said. “You have to be a good support group to one another, and that’s what we are trying to do.

It may take awhile for Ripslinger to get back to being the player she was in high school.

She was a four-time Iowa Gatorade Soccer Player of the Year, four-time first-team All-State, four-time 1A state champion, two-time Quad Cities Female Athlete of the Year, and a goal-scoring machine — 118 throughout her career, to be exact. Until then, though, she knows what she needs to do.

For now, the Hawkeye is soaking up every minute she gets to play on the field.

When Ripslinger made her first appearance in a Sept. 13 game against Illinois-Chicago, she played only 12 minutes. She couldn’t have cared less, though, because the experience was enough.

She was nervous and emotional but ecstatic to have the opportunity to release the “competitive energy” she had built up.

“When Dave first called her over to go in, she just had this little grin on her face,” second-year assistant coach Erica Demers said. “Just seeing that as a coach was enough, you know, knowing that they’re giddy and so excited for the opportunity to get back onto the field.”