Varsity soccer player Daniel Damianakes is making his return from a medial collateral ligament (MCL) tear suffered during a club practice 4 months ago, playing his 1st game of the high school season on January 11 against College Park.

He continued to play with the injury for 3 weeks after it occurred, not realizing its severity, which complicated his recovery. “If I had gotten the surgery sooner, I would have been healthy for the start of the season,” Damianakes said.

Once Damianakes had surgery, doctors said he couldn’t expect to play again until late January, but, he exceeded their expectations.

Damianakes’ road to recovery was a difficult one. “It has been a hard journey, but I recovered quicker than expected and had a lot of work to do on my own to keep my body in shape,” he said. According to Damianakes, coming back into the starting lineup will be hard, but not impossible. “I bench 135 and it helps because it improved my conditioning,” he added.

Damianakes said that his replacement for left back, freshman Kellen Clancy, has been playing well, especially for a freshman, but still has some learning to do.

“We are very excited to have Danny returning from injury; he was a key piece in our [North Coast Section] run last seasons,” said head coach Shane Carney, referring to Campolindo’s NCS loss in the final against De Anza High School.

Carney added that Damianakes “is expected to be stronger as a senior as well as a leader for us in 2017.”

Damianakes said he takes Carney’s comment as a compliment, and hopefully can approach the rest of the season with the same level of hard work that helped him recover from his injury.