ADAMS TWP — Gabi Lassinger walked off the field at the Mars Athletic Complex bent over and in pain.

Lassinger, a senior center-midfielder and forward for the Knoch girls soccer team, had trouble breathing after a collision with Mars goalkeeper Sarah Dailey.

Pain shot down her back and through her rib cage.

“It was scary,” Lassinger said. “When I first went down, I couldn't catch my breath. When I got to the (emergency room), they were talking about a collapsed lung.”

It turned out to be just bruised ribs. “I have some nice bruises, that's for sure,” she said laughing, and she expects to be back on the pitch for the Knights soon.

Nothing, it seems, can keep Lassinger down.

She leads Knoch this season with 12 goals even though her best position is as a center defender.

“We need her for goals,” said Knoch coach Rich Kenzie said. “She's been a workhorse. She's very quick and very skilled. And she's fearless.”

Perhaps a little too fearless.

But her play, both scoring goals for Knoch and preventing them for her Century United club team in the South Hills got her noticed on a national level.

She had offers to attend Division I schools such as Kent State, West Virginia, Canisius and Miami of Ohio before deciding on Lafayette.

“(Lafayette) was the last college I visited,” Lassinger said. “It was the perfect school for me. I fell in love with it. The campus is like something you image when you are little.”

Lafayette recruited her as a defender and gave her a full scholarship.

Making her choice was a very stressful experience, she said.

“I was just thinking, 'When is this going to be over?'” Lassinger said. “I wanted to make my decision early because most Division I schools hand out all their scholarships by junior year.”

With that monumental decision off her shoulders, Lassinger has been able to focus on helping Knoch get back into the playoffs after going 11-8 and losing in the first round of the WPIAL tournament last season.

Knoch is 7-3 overall and 5-2 in the section this season after a loss to Mars.

“I'm really excited this year,” Lassinger said. “We have excellent coaches with (Kenzie) and Amanda Sharbaugh. They get us fired up for games.”

It doesn't take much to get Lassinger fired up for soccer.

She began playing when she was 6. It wasn't until she joined Century United three years ago that she felt achieving her goal of playing Division I soccer was a real possibility.

“It was always my goal,” Lassinger said. “What I always wanted was to play Division I soccer.”

Century United got her noticed. It also honed her skills, she said.

“I owe a lot of my success to my coach (Randi Rohm),” she said. “I learned so much from her. She taught me a totally different way of playing center defender and taught all of us that every single one of us has to be on top of our game to win, from the forwards to the defenders.”

Forwards get all the attention and Lassinger has seen both sides of that.

It has given her a unique perspective, both on the pitch and off of it.

“I'm so used to being in the back, I think it's really fun to be up front,” she said. “I think like a defender when I'm on offense and think like an offensive player when I'm on defense. It really helps.

“Defensive players ... they're like in the background,” Lassinger added. “But they are every bit as important as the forwards. I get my name in the paper (with Knoch) for finishing, but really it's the people behind the forwards who set everything up. I just try to stay humble.”