BOULDER—Two games into the 2022 season and Civana Kuhlmann‘s assimilation to the Colorado Buffaloes soccer program seems flawless.
The early returns seem to agree, having started both matches for the Buffs and netting two goals in last Sunday’s 5-1 win over San Diego.
But first, the background.
Kuhlmann, a Chatfield High School graduate, spent her first four years of college at Pac-12 rival Stanford. Kuhlmann burst on the NCAA soccer scene in 2017, totaling 22 points (9 G, 4 A) as a true freshman, earning Pac-12 All-Freshman honors and winning a national championship. As a sophomore, she scored seven more goals and helped the Cardinal to the semifinals of the NCAA Tournament.
Injury struck at the start of the 2019 season when she suffered a torn ACL in an exhibition game, cutting her season short. The Cardinal went on to win a second NCAA championship that year and Kuhlmann returned for the COVID- delayed 2020 season, being named to the MAC Hermann Trophy Watch List and closing as a Third Team All-Pac-12 selection.
Two hip surgery’s later, with the last being this past February, Kuhlmann’s immediate soccer future was in doubt.
“If I’m being honest, I never thought I would play college soccer again,” Kuhlmann expressed. “After both my hip surgeries, it was Colorado that made me want to play again. It’s a dream to come home and play where I grew up, where I’ve been rehabbing. The place that got me back on my feet. [This season] is going to be special. I’m just excited to play in front of my two nieces every weekend.”
Kuhlmann got back to training after her first surgery, but it wasn’t more than a day later that she found out her left labrum was also torn.
“It was completely defeating,” Kuhlmann recalled. “It was my fourth surgery in two years. I think I was just over it for a quick second. I told myself before that I wouldn’t get another surgery. Then I needed it and it was a no-brainer. I was like, ‘of course I’m going to get it.’ At the time I didn’t think I could, but there was no question that I still wanted to play.
“By the time I complete this second comeback I think I will have completed two collegiate comebacks of over 480 days. I don’t know how many people have done that twice in their college…
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