Morgan Arterburn is just like most high school softball pitchers.
Greer’s top arm, Arterburn is consistent on the mound. She gets great location on her pitches. Arterburn keeps batters guessing often, generating plenty of pop-outs and ground-outs to keep her Lady Jackets in games. As a senior, she’s playing her best softball yet.
There is one tiny difference, however, between Arterburn and most.
Arterburn doesn’t have an ACL in her left leg.
Not a sprain. Not a tear. Her ACL isn’t even there at all.
With a smile on her face after a blazing hot Sunday practice, Arterburn explained just how her situation came to be.
“So, at the beginning of my sophomore year, I tore my ACL on a collision at home plate. I had surgery to fix it after the year,” Arterburn said. “But we found out that, during that surgery, my ACL got misplaced accidentally. So, after my junior year, we decided that it would be best to get the ACL removed entirely.”
At first, Arterburn thought that decision was going to close the book on her softball career.
She’d already been told — and come to grips with the reality — that removing her ACL would keep her out for her entire senior season. The procedure would effectively end her high school playing days.
That ACL removal surgery took place in August of 2025. Arterburn was convinced she wouldn’t play her senior year.
That is, until she stepped out onto Greer’s softball field in the fall, taking in the atmosphere, dreaming of being back out there.
“I was just like, ‘Wow, I miss softball so much. I can’t live without it,” said Arterburn. “I didn’t realize how much I missed it until I couldn’t do it anymore. I didn’t even know if it was possible to play without an ACL… but I wanted to play my senior year. I wanted to have the last ride.
“I decided that I was going to try. I wasn’t going to give up yet.”
Arterburn throws a pitch as a freshman during a game in 2023. Arterburn has been Greer's top pitcher since her freshman season.
Arterburn decided then that she would try to find a way to play her senior year. Whatever it took, she was going to make it happen.
What it first required, however, were several tough conversations with her parents, coaches, and doctors.
“I told my parents that I wanted to try to play, and they agreed that I could still play this last season,” said Arterburn. “So we went to talk to my surgeon about it, and when I went to him, my surgeon said, ‘If you’re all in, then I’m all in.’ He was good with it.”
“Mo[rgan] told me she had set her mind to it, that she was going to play without her ACL, and I was surprised but ecstatic about it,” said Greer softball head coach Jennifer McDaniel. “I was heartbroken at the thought of not having her this season, so when she told me she was going to go for it, I was so happy.”
Though rare, especially at the high school level, it is possible to play sports without an ACL. It’s even rarer in sports like softball — a game that requires plenty of pivoting and planting of the legs.
During games, Arterburn wears a brace on her left leg to keep her steady without an ACL.
She’s been solid for Greer so far this year, earning the win in all four regular-season starts on the mound. Her progress is immense, especially considering that when she first had the ACL removed, she struggled to even walk upright at times.
“I remember that at first, I’d just be walking around and I’d feel it buckle, and I’d almost fall,” said Arterburn. “That was really scary. But I’ve definitely gotten used to it a bit more now, which has helped on the field.”
Arterburn will need another surgery after her senior year. Doctors will take her quadriceps tendon and use it to replace and reconstruct her ACL.
It will be the fourth surgery she’s had in the last three years.
“She’s incredibly strong and competitive, to have to go through that and to still be out here, fighting to play her senior year,” said McDaniel. “I really think it’s a ‘go hard or go home’ mindset for [Morgan]. She doesn’t want to play softball in college, so she wants to just put everything she has into this senior year.”
In Greer’s home regular-season opener on March 3, Arterburn tossed four good innings, allowing just three hits and no earned runs, in the Lady Jackets’ 13-1 win over Southside Christian.
Arterburn also lifted a home run to deep left center in the fourth inning. She rounded the bases with a huge grin as her teammates greeted her at home plate.
Arterburn holds up the home run ball she hit in Greer's 13-1 win over Southside Christian on March 3, 2026.
She saw the ball carry over the fence and heard the Greer fans cheering her on. At that moment, Arterburn knew she’d made the right decision.
“When that happened, it just gave me a clear perspective,” said Arterburn. “I knew when that happened that I was supposed to be out here. I didn’t have any doubts anymore at that point.
“I was meant to be on this field for my senior year.”
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