For Avent, it was a homecoming of sorts. “We knew the first day we got here that we had made the right choice,” she said. “I knew it wasn’t someone doing guesswork on her.”

For the month of August, Avent and Kennedi traveled three times a week from Swedesboro to UD for physical therapy, trekking 45 minutes — or more — each way. During her first visit with senior physical therapist Greg Seymour, Kennedi worked at bending her leg. By her third visit, she was starting on crutches.

On her first day of high school in September, she walked into class on her own.

“At first, it was pretty tough because it hurt a lot,” Kennedi said. “I was scared because I didn’t know how fast I was going to recover. It definitely made me more comfortable because my mom went to school there.”

PCL injuries account for only about 3% of all injured knees, Seymour said. Of those, UD’s PT Clinic, which celebrates its 25th anniversary this year, likely sees more than most because of its extensive history of knee-related research.

Thanks to her hard work and patience, Kennedi expects to make a full recovery. She has been cleared by UD. Her final testing showed she jumped further on her left leg (the one she injured) than her right. The one-year injury anniversary of her injury is July 12, and that’s when she plans to start working out with her high school volleyball team.

Her rehabilitation success sparked the idea of perhaps pursuing a health-related career and maybe even following in her mother’s Blue Hen tracks.

“Seeing where I am now and how fast I have recovered, it’s pretty unbelievable,” she said. “I’m pretty grateful for it all.”