A human’s natural inclination is to turn from what causes pain. The brain registers pain to prevent the body from being hurt further. No one goes back to the fire after it burns them.

Then there’s OU soccer junior Liz Keester.

Soccer means too much to her to give up, no matter the pain it causes.

Keester, who transferred from Texas A&M at the end of her sophomore year, was raised amongst former Sooners in Tulsa. Her parents, Mike and Sue, and her three siblings, Jessica, Brian and Colleen, all went to the university.

Even the OU jersey runs in her family.

Colleen, her oldest sister, played soccer for the Sooners from 2004-07, appearing in 73 games, scoring two goals along with four assists.

Keester uses soccer as her release for troubles in her life. But when the thing she loved most was causing her the most pain, what was she supposed to do?

Keep playing.

“I love playing soccer,” Keester said. “I love to compete, I love being a part of a team and being in a team environment. My teammates continually have been my best friends for my entire life and getting to compete with them and play soccer, doing the thing I love the most."

Keester said she has been battling injuries as long as she’s been playing soccer — MCL tears, stress fractures in her foot and ankle reconstruction surgery.

“It was always worth it,” she said.

Despite injuries that would end the careers of most athletes, her love for the game has been unhindered, largely because it’s her coping mechanism.

It was her outlet in 2005 when both her brother and mom lost their best friends. Sam Shannon, her brother’s best friend, died after being struck by lightning and Carol Gastel, her mom’s best friend, passed away from breast cancer when Liz was 10. Liz’s best friends from soccer helped her through that time — friends she never would’ve had if not for the sport she loves.

“Soccer had always been my outlet,” she said. “I just remember always being able to turn to my soccer teammates during the hard times.”

While the emotional trauma in her life has racked up, physical injures have always had just as big of an influence.

She wasn’t going to let those stop her either.

“I’ve always really imagined myself coming back,” she said. “It’s just been another hurdle to go over. An injury was never big enough for me to be like ‘okay, I don’t want to work to come back.'”

She doesn’t think she’s injury prone, but rather her injuries stem simply from how hard she plays. Several times in her career, she’s played through injury, including during her freshman season at Texas A&M, where she scored 10 goals en route to a SEC Tournament MVP award. “I got to the point where my legs were hurting all the time,” she said.

Keester was suffering from exertion induced compartment syndrome in her shin. The syndrome caused a covering to form around the muscles in her leg, making them tighten up and allow fluid to build up inside. Keester continued to play through it, sometimes until her foot would go numb.

Strangely, Keester felt most at peace with her injuries when they were the worst — while she was playing.

“Soccer was the one part where I knew they were going to hurt so it was okay.”

In a strange way, she expected the pain to be there while she played soccer, so she was able to cope with it. She knew when she laced up her cleats and stepped onto the field, it would be painful.

Since her bout with compartment syndrome, which she had surgery for in January 2014, she has transferred to OU and is finding herself a lot happier — and healthier.

“She’s the happiest that kid has been in several years,” her father Mike said.

Liz has faced injuries, and she has felt loss and a lot of pain from those things. But she’d never give up soccer.

“When I’m on the soccer field, everything is okay,” she said. “Everything makes sense. It feels like I’m where I’m supposed to be.”