MADISON, Wis. -- Cassie Bright is jumping at the chance to play soccer again.

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"I've been out for a year now and it's miserable," Cassie said.

An ankle injury side-lined the eighth-grader last year.

"It really wasn't one injury that I really remember," Cassie said. "I just started having ankle pains to the point where I'd have to limp, and I couldn't really walk, and it would give out and I'd just sort of fall."

Doctors said that Cassie was experiencing growing pains, and said physical therapy could heal it. In reality, her injury would require surgery, WISC-TV reported.

"After awhile, I had another knee injury and we came to see a specialist and we had him just check out the ankle while he was there," Cassie said. "After lots of MRIs and X-rays, they figured out that the bone had died from so many traumas because I was so flat-footed."

Cassie had surgery in January to fix the damage, and now she is on her way to recovery.

Physical therapist Dan Reimer said that's a common injury for young people, but that it's also more common for girls.

"Girls tend to do suffer more injuries than boys," Reimer said. "There are a lot of different theories out there. I think, personally, it's mostly due to strengthening and conditioning."

Reimer said that girls tend to land on their feet differently than boys do, thus putting more of an impact on joints.

According to physical therapists, jump roping is a great strength activity for younger children. Hitting the weight room isn’t recommended until teens are in high school.

But Casssie is bouncing back with a bit of training and a lot of repetitions to prevent further damage.

"Playing soccer again … that's what I think about when I don't feel like doing my exercises," Cassie said. “I want to get back to playing soccer as soon as I can, and so the more often I do them, the quicker I'll get back to playing."

Stay tuned to WISC-TV and Channel 3000 for continuing coverage.