Apr 13, 2025 By Jerin Steele 4 min read

On the morning before returning from a serious knee injury, Kiersten Williams made a post on social media about how thankful she was to be playing softball again.

The last line read: Here’s to my revenge tour.

She wasn’t kidding.

In her first three games back for Canon-McMillan after rehabbing for around seven months from a torn ACL, Williams, a Seton Hill recruit, has made her presence known.

She had a triple in her return against Woodland Hills Monday, smacked a double off Seneca Valley standout pitcher Lexi Hames the next day and hit a three-run homer in a 7-6 win over Pine-Richland Friday.

The first three games put an exclamation point on a long, yet speedy recovery.

Williams was injured in September and was cleared two months ahead of schedule.

“The journey was hard, but I’ve been pushing to get ahead of the game,” Williams said. “It’s definitely amazing to know that I got back two months before I was supposed to.

“As soon as I got cleared to do things I went at it hard to knock the rust off. I also went to a sports psychologist, because this has been tough mentally and that’s really helped me.”

Williams’ injury happened when she was playing goalkeeper for the Canon-McMillan girls soccer team.

Prior to this past season, Williams hadn’t played varsity soccer, but some friends asked her to try out for the team and she ended up winning the starting goalkeeper job.

She was enjoying her time on the soccer field up until the injury occurred.

“We were about three games in when it happened,” Williams said. “We were tied 1-1 in overtime against Upper St. Clair, and I dove and saved a ball, but one the ball started rolling toward one of their players and she was about to shoot it again. As I tried to get up really quick and I was pushing off my knee, it just gave way.”

As one could expect, many thoughts ran through Williams’ head.

The first one was whether the injury would affect her chances of getting a college scholarship for softball.

She hadn’t committed anywhere but was receiving plenty of interest.

A phone call with Seton Hill coach Cassie Moore helped ease her mind.

“I told her I had something important to tell her, and the first thing she said was ‘Did you commit somewhere else?’,” Williams said. “I said no, and told her about the injury and she said, ‘I’ve had people on this team that have gone through that before and have come out on the side stronger both physically and mentally.’ That gave me hope for the future and about a month later I committed to Seton Hill.”

Williams didn’t know if playing high school softball was a realistic possibility when she started the rehab process. Her initial goal was to be ready to go for her freshman year at Seton Hill but learned quickly that her recovery was going well.

Canon-McMillan coach Michelle Moeller has worked with players coming off knee injuries in the past. She’s glad to have Williams back in the lineup as an impact bat and as a leader in the field for a younger team.

“You can see a difference in the infield,” Moeller said. She communicates well. We do have a lot of younger players and to have Kiersten back out there talking and picking people up has been nice. I’ve been able to call over some of the freshmen and tell them to watch and listen to how she talks to her teammates, because they can learn a lot from her.”

Moeller said they’ll monitor Williams’ health, but has already seen her go full throttle in a game.

“She made me a little nervous (Tuesday against Seneca Valley), because she hit a double and nobody covered third,” Moeller said. “She took off and everyone was converging and I was thinking ‘You just came back, so please don’t have a collision at third base.’ But she made it in there with a head-first slide.”

Williams hopes to help lead Canon-McMillan back to the playoffs and go on another run after the Big Macs made it to the WPIAL Class 6A semifinals last season.

“I know what it was like to be a freshman or sophomore going up against really good teams like Seneca Valley and Hempfield and being able to be there for my teammates is something I’ve been enjoying,” Williams said. “I want to be a role model for them, because I’ve been in their shoes.”