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BLACKSBURG - If it weren’t for bad luck, Austin Gabel swears he wouldn’t have any luck at all.

After a healthy first two years in Blacksburg - relatively speaking for a wrestler - Gabel suffered not one, not two, but three knee injuries last season in addition to a broken nose suffered in the first dual match of the season. In typical Gabel fashion, though, he pushed his body to the limits and wrestled injured before the knee finally broke down for good in a dual match against Duke on Feb. 14.

These injuries during the 2014-15 season came after suffering a previous knee injury a year before that kept him off the mat for almost two months.

“I tore the MCL in my right knee my redshirt sophomore year, but with the latest medicine, they don’t do surgeries on MCLs like they did 15-20 years ago,” Gabel said. “The doctors hoped time, rest and rehab would heal it. I injured it in December and tried to come back, but ended up re-hurting it, which put me out until the week before the ACC Championships.”

He returned late and still managed to qualify for the NCAA Championships for the second time, but that injury reared its ugly head this past season as that same knee just kept breaking down until Gabel couldn’t go any more.

Gabel re-injured the MCL in the quarterfinals of The Midlands in late December when he relaxed on the edge in the tiebreaker, and Old Dominion’s Jack Dechow shot in on the knee for the takedown. Gabel would lose that match 3-1 in the tiebreaker and forfeit out of the tournament with the injury.

“With the MCL never getting repaired, I think it wasn’t quite as strong as we hoped,” Gabel said. “I stood up, and the knee buckled. In my head, it wasn’t as bad as it really was and we thought I tore the scar tissue. But I knew there was something different about it. I’d be walking and my knee would give out.”

Gabel would continue to wrestle, altering his training methods to be able to compete. The second injury came on Jan. 18 in a dual at Iowa State.

“In the last period, my knee really gave out on me,” he said. “We thought it was the same injury, but the doctors checked me out and had me get an MRI. I got the results that day and it revealed an MCL and ACL tear in the knee.”

Having been already wrestling for a month with the injury, the 184-pounder decided to continue to gut it out, wrestling basically on one leg. He changed his training methods and the way he wrestled and it worked as he continued to help out the team. But it all came to an end on Valentine’s Day night at Cassell when he suffered the third injury to the knee. Leading 5-1 against Jacob Kasper, Gabel fell awkwardly on the knee when Kasper took him down, and he tore the meniscus. Gabel tried to go, but knew in his heart that his season was over.

“I felt my knee completely give out on me and I rolled over in agony,” Gabel said. “I collected myself and tried to go, but the knee was locked up and there was no way I was finishing. Dresser told me I had been Superman all year and asked if I wanted to continue, but at that point I got pretty emotional because there was nothing that I could do about it.”

Gabel had surgery on the knee on Feb. 24 and has spent all offseason rehabbing. The rising redshirt senior from Parker, Colorado, now has one last chance to make a run at the podium in March and is doing whatever he can to make sure he’s healthy this fall. He’s almost five months out from surgery and two weeks ago was cleared for hand fighting.

“It’s been nice to get hit in the face and get the shoes back on,” Gabel joked.

Gabel knows there’s a fine line between pushing himself too far, thus re-injuring himself, and coming back too slow if he wants to be ready for November wrestling. The coaches and training staff - along with Gabel - will continue to monitor everything and pull back the reins if necessary because this is the final run for Gabel being that he already redshirted. He admits that, while it would be nice to be out on the mat on Nov. 7 against Iowa State in Cassell Coliseum, it’s the ACC and NCAA Championships that matter most to him and the team.

“Austin is progressing very well after a pretty extensive knee surgery in February,” Tech head coach Kevin Dresser said. “He appears to be on schedule to be cleared for most of his final season. Austin did a good job competing for us last season considering the shape his knee was in for the last month of the season. He is a tough kid!”

He’s also prepping for life after wrestling with an internship this summer with a local financial advisor. As a business management and finance double major, Gabel is using this experience and opportunity to ready him for what lies ahead after next year when he graduates.

“I’m working with Ron Gibbs, who works for Verity Asset Management, Inc. in Blacksburg and he works with a lot of coaches at Virginia Tech,” Gabel said. “He is a financial planner who works with a lot of retirement plans, 403Bs, 401Ks and even different educational programs like Virginia529. He’s a great guy who works with my schedule and around wrestling, but I’ve gotten to sit in on meetings, do some paperwork and filings and learn the ropes of the business.”

Gabel will enter his fifth and final season with 49 wins and two NCAA appearances, but wants to leave with a lot more.

“You get to thinking about what your legacy will be and I don’t want to be remembered as the guy who wrestled the top guys tough and close, but couldn’t pull out the big wins,” he said. “I feel strong and hopefully I can get a full year of good health and make a run not just to the podium, but high up on that podium.”

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