Mani being Mani
ADAMS TWP — Mars girls soccer coach Blair Gerlach will tell you Mani Brueckner was more of an assists type of player last season.
If that's true, what type of player would she be this year?
Brueckner, a junior midfielder with the Planets, tallied just over 20 assists and had 12 goals as a sophomore.
In 2010, she had 27 goals but tallied 41 assists in helping Mars to the WPIAL Class AA championship.
Those efforts earned Brueckner the Butler Eagle Girls Soccer Player of the Year award.
“Her play this year is really not a surprise,” said Gerlach. “She started as a freshman and last year assisted on a majority of the goals.
“One of the things about her is you could put her in any of the six attack positions and she could be dangerous,” Gerlach added.
Brueckner was part of a Planets squad that finished the season with a 24-1 record, the lone defeat coming in a 3-0 PIAA semifinal loss to Mercyhurst Prep.
Mars outscored its opponents 169-7 in the previous 24 games.
“In my sophomore year, I was not as dominant a force as I could have been,” said Brueckner. “I just wanted to step up.”
The odd thing about Brueckner's numbers is the amount of time she played. You could say she was a part-time player.
“She's not sitting in front of the goal, cleaning up the scraps. She's creating. She's scoring,” Gerlach said. “With all the goals we were scoring, she barely saw the field in the second half of games.”
“We knew we had a dominant scoring team,” said Brueckner. “Our forwards, Kristen Check (24 goals, 10 assists) and Karli Paracca, any ball you play, they can get to, and Dana Wonderly (21 goals, 21 assists) and Alanna Haefner (14 goals, 11 assists) score in the air off my corner kicks. That's where I get a lot of my assists.”
Assists are a big part of Brueckner's game and that's something that stands out when she talks about the team's success.
“I don't need the glory. I try to put the good of the team before myself,” Brueckner noted.
“She's not the first person to tell you about her scoring,” noted Gerlach. “She's a hard worker and she has a great attitude.
“She's a great example for the freshmen. We had 17 on the team and she's a great example that if you work hard, you will reap the benefits,” he added.
Brueckner, who might become the first Mars girls soccer player to be named to the all-state team, knows the pressure will be on the Planets again next year.
The squad had six seniors, including Wonderly, Haefner and goalie Meghan Kelly, but Brueckner knows what her team is capable of doing.
“We're losing a great group of girls, but we have some underclassmen ready to fill their shoes,” Brueckner said. “Maybe we will be able to make the state finals, but it would be hard to surpass this season.”
