KARNS CITY — Megan McCartney has heard it before.

She’s too small.

At 5-foot-1, the diminutive dynamo for the Karns City girls soccer team sometimes gets overlooked and underestimated.

Then she delivers a perfect cross while falling down to the turf. Then she bends a shot into the net with her left foot while sliding.

Then she gets noticed.

“It bothers me sometimes,” McCartney said. “I just make up for it with how I play on the field.

“I can’t control how tall I am,” McCartney added, laughing. “If I could, I’d be really tall right now.”

McCartney, a junior forward/midfielder for the Gremlins, scored 29 goals and also had 19 assists for Karns City this season.

She was a big reason why the Gremlins advanced to the PIAA Class A semifinals.

For her efforts, she was named the Butler Eagle Girls Soccer Player of the Year.

Tori Kopchak of Mars was also considered for the award.

To McCartney, the recognition is proof of how hard she has worked to become the soccer player she is now.

“It’s really exciting,” McCartney said. “I’m just happy I made it that far in the conversation.”

McCartney found out she was player of the year after a nap. Her reaction, she said, was “Oh, yeah!”

It’s the same reaction Karns City girls soccer coach Tracy Dailey gets when she sees McCartney score or set up a goal for the Gremlins.

“She just creates opportunities, for herself and for her teammates,” Dailey said. “She’s unpredictable and that makes her hard to stop. She’s a very exciting player.”

McCartney is also a soccer junky.

When she’s not playing, she’s watching the sport on television. When she’s not watching the sport on television, she is listening to the sport.

She knows of international players that few others can name. She’s constantly studying the best so she can be the best, she said.

“I watch it so much,” McCartney said. “My biggest dream is to get on the U.S. national team.”

Her immediate dream for next year is to help Karns City reach the state championship game.

She said the experience this year, especially the 3-2 win over WPIAL champion Greensburg Central Catholic, proved to her and her teammates that it can be done.

“We don’t play the best competition sometimes during our season,” McCartney said. “But in the playoffs, it showed how we could play against some of the best, that we could match up with anyone.”