Springdale grad Bri Ross picks up at Penn State Behrend where she left off in high school

After a senior season that included 42 goals, a WPIAL Class A title and recognition as the Valley News Dispatch Girls Soccer Player of the Year, Springdale’s Bri Ross certainly had nothing left to prove at the high school level.

But like all incoming college freshmen, Ross had to prove herself all over again when she stepped on the pitch for the Penn State Behrend women’s team. She came off the bench in the first four matches, and it was in that fourth match that she signaled her intent to pick up where she left off in high school.

Her goal in the 34th minute proved to be all the Lions needed in a 2-0 defeat of Allegheny in a nonconference game.

“The first one was probably my favorite,” said Ross, who has added 10 more since. “It was me coming off the bench, and it was kind of my chance to prove not just to me but my team and to everyone else that I didn’t come here just to mess around.

“I’m ready to be an important person on this team who will make big achievements.”

Ross’ 11 goals and 29 points — she also has seven assists — rank third in the Allegheny Mountain Collegiate Conference. More importantly, she helped PS Behrend (13-3-2, 8-0 AMCC) win the regular-season title.

Tuesday’s 6-0 win over Alfred State was the team’s eighth straight. After a first-round bye over the weekend, the No. 1-seeded Lions will host Penn State Altoona on Wednesday.

Ross has been in the starting lineup since that win over Allegheny, and as the season has gone on, she has piled up the points. Ten of her 11 goals and all seven of her assists have come in the past eight matches, including hat tricks against Hilbert and Pitt-Bradford.

It was a one-goal game, however, that Ross said stood out. In a nonconference match against SUNY Brockport on Oct. 21, Ross scored the opening goal in the 17th minute to kick-start the Lions’ 3-0 victory. Brockport entered the match 11-1-3 overall undefeated in its conference.

“Just going in and scoring that first goal was really exciting,” she said. “I proved that I could score in really big games and not just some of the others.”

Coach Patrick O’Driscoll said he is surprised by Ross’ performance only because “you just never know, do you?” when it comes to freshmen. Otherwise, the 20th-year coach knew she had the tools to be a successful player.

“Always knew that she had a really high ceiling in terms of ability,” said O’Driscoll, who has guided the Lions to 13 AMCC titles. “She’s a really good dribbler. … She doesn’t just use pure speed. She’s fairly thoughtful with cuts and dropping her shoulder and pausing and sort of freezing the defender a little bit.

“She’s very thoughtful how she does it. It’s not that she just knocks (the ball) by and chases it.”

As Ross has continued to make a name for herself, defenses still haven’t been able to slow her down. Asked if he believes teams are starting to pay more attention to her defensively, O’Driscoll said he couldn’t “accurately answer that” because so much of her success has come in the latter part of the season.

She has been named the AMCC Offensive Player of the Week the past two weeks.

But Ross has a bigger prize in mind: another conference title and a berth in the national tournament. The win over Brockport plus battling No. 18 Carnegie Mellon gamely before losing 1-0 on Oct. 1 has shown Ross what Behrend is capable of accomplishing.

“I feel as though we are all confident, but we’re not going to be complacent,” she said. “We’re going into every game like it’s the most important game.”