She might not have been looking for one, but Marissa Behning was given a new perspective on competing in high school sports.

The senior has fond memories of being part of the girls swimming and track teams at Seneca Valley.

But during a four-month span of her sophomore year, the Cranberry Township resident went through a series of events that almost took her athletic career, along with her right leg, away from her.

On a night in late October 2004, Behning and some friends treated themselves to a haunted hayride.

"After a while, the tractor stopped and everybody got out," said Behning. "There's this section that you just walk through.

"My friend and I started walking together when some people dressed up like monsters started chasing us. It was all just part of the hayride, but we started running away from them down this hill and that's when I fell."

Behning fell on her right knee and then slid several feet, with gravel and sticks cutting through her jeans and into her skin.

"It felt like a bad brushburn, only 10 times worse," she said. "But I'm not one to show a lot of emotion, so I got up and we got back on the tractor and finished the hayride."

But her injury needed immediate attention.

Behning had torn a gaping hole in her knee. Her entire right pants leg was covered with blood by the time the hayride was over.

After contacting her mother, she was taken to Children's Hospital in Pittsburgh.

"It took them seven hours to clean all the rocks, dirt and debris out of my knee," Behning said. "They actually got down to the bone and were scrubbing it. They kept giving me shots to numb my leg, but it was still the most pain I've ever felt."

Behning received a total of 19 stitches, including nine inside her knee.

But the freak accident was only the beginning.

Two days after her injury, Behning woke up to find her leg was infected, causing her to spend four days in the hospital.

Finally, after spending several weeks on crutches, Behning was able to turn her attention to qualifying for the WPIAL Class AAA swimming championships, which were scheduled for early March.

"I had qualified for WPIALs my freshman year," she said. "Swimming is my favorite sport and getting back was something I really wanted to do."

But during her first practice back, in late November, another stroke of bad luck was waiting for Behning.

"I was ready to get in the water and I slipped on the pool deck, landing on my knee," she said. "It tore the whole wound open again.

"I went back to the hospital and the doctor said that if I ripped my knee open one more time, I may never walk again, much less play sports. He said my leg could be amputated.

"That's when I realized how serious it was."

Behning was still determined to make the WPIAL swim meet, which was a little more than three months away.

She went through one month of rehabilitation with Daniel Glatz at Performance Unlimited in Evans City.

"I went to rehab just about every day for a month," she said. "All that time when I couldn't move my leg, there was basically no muscle in my calf or quad. It was like Jello."

"She had a lot of muscle wasting and poor knee control," Glatz said. "I had her do a lot of strength and body control exercises and we worked on getting back muscle stability."

Behning returned to swim for SV in late January 2005, but it wasn't until the Raiders' final regular season meet against North Allegheny Feb. 17 that she met her goal.

Even though her right knee was at just 60 percent of its normal strength, Behning qualified for WPIALs.

"I swam a 1:05.87 in the 100 backstroke and qualified by 13 one-hundredths of a second. It was an incredible feeling," she said.

Behning qualified for the WPIAL swimming meet all four years and made her first appearance at the state championships last month, where she swam the backstroke leg of the 200 medley relay and helped the Raiders place ninth in the event, good for 18 points toward SV's team total.

As a team, the Raiders placed fifth in the state in Class AAA.

Behning is competing in the 1,600- and 3,200-meter runs for SV's girls track team this spring.

"What happened to me, it was such a freak accident," said Behning. "But it's definitely made me appreciate sports and being able to compete. I feel very lucky because my leg could've been amputated and I can't imagine that."

Behning plans to attend Penn State University and major in kinesiology.

"Sports aren't in my future at Penn State," she said. "But I plan on staying physically active the rest of my life. I want to be a personal trainer, so staying fit will be part of my job."