ERIE — Develop a challenge, meet it and move on.

Amy Achesinski leads her basketball life that way, and it's working so far.

The Butler graduate and Mercyhurst College freshman was named Great Lakes Intercollegiate Athletic Conference Women's Basketball Freshman of the Year by vote of the league's coaches.

Achesinski averaged 16.9 points and 7.7 rebounds per game for the Lakers despite playing on a team with no seniors and playing for a coaching staff that didn't recruit her.

She also joined a program that had lost 142 of 186 games during this decade.

"I saw a chance to make an immediate impact,"Achesinski said. "That's one of the reasons I came here."

It was also one of the reasons she stayed there despite a coaching change that occurred after she signed her letter of intent. Karin Nicholls, the coach who recruited Achesinski, was gone. Deanna Richard and a new staff were in.

"We were hoping she'd stay," assistant coach Tiffany Grubaugh said. "A lot of times, players leave in that situation. Obviously, we were hoping she wouldn't."

"Had I left, I would have had to sit out a year and I wanted to play,"Achesinski said. "I would have missed playing too much.

"My challenge was to make an impact. Our team's challenge was to win more games than the previous year."

Achesinski made an impact as a freshman at Butler, leading the team in scoring and being named WPIALFreshman of the Year. She went on to score 1,525 points and was part of three WPIALplayoff teams.

Mercyhurst finished 7-20 this season, losing 10 of its last 11 games. But the Lakers of the previous season were only 6-21 and had five seniors.

The 2007-08 Lakers consisted of two juniors, six sophomores and four freshmen.

"I knew it was going to be rocky this year,"Achesinski said. "But it was definitely a little easier starting out with such a young team.

"It was free game. It was open to anybody who wanted to assume a leadership role, and that's what I wanted to do."

Based on her performance in preseason camp, Achesinski quickly became a leader.

"Usually, post players aren't the best runners. They're not in that kind of shape," Grubaugh said. "Amy definitely was.

"We didn't have a lot of competition for her in practice. We weren't quite sure how she'd do once we started playing the games."

It didn't take long to find out.

Achesinski scored 17 points and grabbed 16 rebounds in her collegiate debut. She added six more double- doubles during the season and scored a career-high 38 points against Wayne State (Mich.) Jan. 26, adding eight rebounds and two assists.

The 38 points marked the most scored by a Mercyhurst player in more than 15 years.

"She was so good, so consistent. ... After a while, it became clear she was going to be freshman of the year,"Grubaugh said.

Achesinski was the third-leading scorer among all NCAADivision IIfreshmen. Her 58-percent shooting from the floor ranked eighth in the country and she was the lone freshman among the top 60 in that category.

Achesinski rooms with former AAUbasketball teammate Samantha Loadman, a freshman guard from Bethel Park.

"It helped having a familiar face with me when I got up here,"Achesinski admitted.

Now she's ready for a new set of challenges, which include moving into the Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference and trying to reach that league's playoffs next year.

"I'm up for it," she said. "We were 3-1 against PSACschools this year, we'll be dealing with less travel and we'll be playing more games closer to my hometown, which is awesome."