The CT Softball Blog

FAIRFIELD—Don’t let Stella Rosado’s unassuming, shy demeanor fool you.

The Fairfield Little League 12-year-old All-Star starting second baseman might not say a lot verbally, but she is ferocious; a competitor who stared defeat straight in the eye and said simply, “No!”

Yes, those eyes were sometimes tear-filled, but when you’re only 11 years old and you don’t just tear your ACL but basically destroy your whole right knee, you fear the tomorrows and the games that may never come again.

When you can’t even walk, how can you imagine ever running again?

In the late fall of 2023, the then 11-year-old Rosado was having a great time with friends on her travel soccer team during an indoor practice.

One collision changed it all.

Rosado went down. She couldn’t get up.

“We were just scrimmaging during practice, and I had the ball, and I was dribbling, and this girl, she came over and shoved me into the floor,” Rosado recalled. “And I just hit the floor really hard, and I couldn’t really get back up.”

Just like that, before her career truly had started, Rosado was sidelined from all her sports.

Soccer. Basketball. Softball.

“In the beginning I was really upset that it happened to me,” Rosado admitted. “But then I really liked both sports and wanted to keep playing them. So just I had to get better.”

An 11-year-old who tears her ACL might not seem as rare as you think.

A query to Chatgpt on the subject came back as such: “Tearing an ACL (anterior cruciate ligament) is unfortunately becoming more common among young female athletes—including those as young as 11 or 12—especially in high-demand sports like soccer, basketball, and softball.”

The Rosado family sought out medical advice locally. No doctors were willing to take her on as a client due to growth-plate issues that could interfere with or be affected by surgery.

Instead, the family found Dr. Daniel Green, a pediatric orthopedic surgeon out of the Hospital for Special Surgeries in New York City.

“We looked for a pediatric orthopedic surgeon and we learned its actually becoming more and more the norm,” Stephanie Rosado said of younger girls injuring their knees so severely. “He’s been doing all this research of it happening to young athletes, so that’s why we picked him.”

While the surgery was a success, the journey back to the playing fields was far from over.

Tearing an ACL, regardless of age, means one thing: Arduous work and being committed to the work it would take to return to form.

And this is what makes Stella Rosado special.

Every time the pain tried to make her quit, Rosado refused to listen. She knew so many of the world’s greatest female athletes had been through it and bounced back, so why not her?

After all, what does Rosado have in common with former UConn women’s basketball great Paige Bueckers and former Team USA Women’s Soccer star Alex Morgan have in common?

All have overcome torn ACLs and the recovery it takes to return to the field of play before helping their team win a championship.

Bueckers won a national championship, Morgan won World Cups and Olympic Gold Medals, and Stella Rosado was at second base for the Fairfield Little League All-Stars when they won both the District 2 and Section 1 championships.

Tonight, she and her team begin its quest for a state title when the Fairfield 12s plays Berlin in the first round of the CT Little League Championship Tournament’s Final Four in Waterford.

The fact Rosado is back on the field is both a testament to modern medicine and her own work ethic.

Rosado’s injury, after all, was especially serious. It wasn’t just a torn ACL, but a full rupture of her right knee.

Surgeons rebuilt the knee, using part of Rosado’s quad muscle in the process.

Months of rehab followed.

“I actually started two weeks of physical therapy before surgery,” Rosado said. “After that, I think I had PT for 17 months. So that was a lot. Three or four times a week.”

There were nights, especially right after the surgery, where Rosado would break down in tears and ask, “Why me?”

“I remember her sitting on the couch, it was like a day or two after surgery, and she had this big brace on and she couldn’t even step to get up,” Rosado’s mother, Stephanie, said. “That’s when I remember her breaking down and she was so mad, yelling at me, ‘Why did we do this surgery? I was feeling so good and now I’ve got all this pain.’”

Stella Rosado is not a quitter, though.

When each emotional wave passed, she was ready to go back to work.

Through HSS, Rosado began working with physical therapist Daniel Jacobs in Norwalk with the next stage of her recovery.

“He really helped me recover and get back to trusting my leg and helping all the strength come back,” Stella Rosado said. “I knew I wanted to come back to all my sports and be just as good as I was, so I knew I had to do it.”

The journey is still not over either, but Jacobs has been there for Rosado in more ways that one.

“She’s still in PT,” Stephanie Rosado added, “but he is the PT who was in her ear when she was crying and having meltdowns. He’s an athlete who knows what it’s like to be injured. He was amazing with her and with me as a parent.”

Rosado’s mother remembered the moment she knew her daughter was hurt.

“The whole world just dropped out,” Stephanie said. “Stella is very quiet, but she’s an athlete. She’s had a ball in her hand since she was two. And she’s a cross country runner , too, and literally after surgery she couldn’t even put her foot down. She had to learn how to walk again.”

The days and the nights when the tears came were the hardest, but the family never gave up.

“I think one of the things I’m most proud of about her is how she handled it,” Stephanie Rosado said. “She kept her strength and went through it and how hard she worked to get back.”

While still making the knee stronger this summer, Rosado is back and 100 percent the player she was when she was 11. If not better.

Stephanie Rosado could not watch the first time Stella stepped back on the soccer field, but with softball every inning has brought the family a special joy knowing all they have overcome to make it happen.

Fairfield Little League All-Star manager Ellen Kiernan has seen Rosado’s recovery up close as Rosado was still a part of her CT Fury Travel Team and was around for last summer’s 11-year-old All-Star run, even though she couldn’t play.

“She’s always had that calm demeanor, even from when she first started with us until after the injury,” Kiernan said. “But she’s always been a hard worker, and she wants to work hard. I’m sure she wanted to know why it was happening to her, but she never brought that to the field. Post-injury, as she was coming back, it was never a why-me situation. It was always I’m here to work hard and get better.”

Once upon a time, Rosado was a lead-off hitter and played some shortstop. She’s found new homes at second base and elsewhere in the line-up.

In the back of her mind, she knew things wouldn’t be the same as the last time she was on the field, but slowly yet surely, during her comeback, Rosado took things a step at a time.

For the longest time, with her leg still in a brace, she would work with her private-lesson coach, former Fairfield University assistant coach Alessandra Ponce.

Ponce had also suffered a torn ACL in college and proved to be another sounding board as she put her protégé through her workouts.

Little things like catching pop flies turned into fielding ground balls. Hitting drills went from little things like extensions to full swings.

When Rosado was finally cleared to return between the baselines, she could swing the bat and run to first base, where a pinch runner would immediately replace her.

“I was only allowed to run in straight lines,” she said.

Then one day, after being allowed to stay in the game, she had to slide.

“I was worried about that,” she admitted. “That’s the leg I put under me when I slide.”

When the dust settled, however, Rosado stood up on the bag.

Not only was she safe, she was back.

“I’ll be the first one to say I forgot she was injured,” Kiernan said. “She looks 100 percent and is as fast as can be. She’s still that kid who wants to get a hit every time up or make every play that is hit to her. She’s always been that kid and it’s been fun seeing her come back.”

This summer there is no watching her friends and teammates play.

Rosado is out on the field with them, practicing hard, working hard, and winning championships.

Just don’t let her unassuming and shy demeanor fool you.

If Stella Rosado was going to work hard to get back from a serious injury in order to play the games she loves, she’s going to do whatever it takes to beat you, as well.

(From The Dugout is a regular column written by CT Softball Blog Publisher John Nash)