LATROBE — At the time, Maria Baroffio was anguished by a serious knee injury.

But her torn ACL, as painful and unfortunate as it was, steered Baroffio to a great situation.

Baroffio, who starred for the Golden Tornado girls basketball team as a senior before suffering the injury during a scrimmage two days before a first-round playoff game, was set to go to St. John Fisher College in Rochester, N.Y.

The injury changed all that. Instead, she opted for St. Vincent College and tackled her arduous rehab head on.

"It was the hardest thing I have gone through in my life," Baroffio said. "They said it would take eight to 10 months to come back. I did it in four."

Shifting gears was nothing new for Baroffio, who worked hard to become a force as a shooting guard for the Golden Tornado.

Her staple had been as a defensive stopper until she showed off her offensive prowess during her senior year, scoring 9.6 points and draining 21 3-pointers.

Baroffio is showing off her eclectic skills again as a junior at St. Vincent — and joining history as well.

Baroffio is leading the team in scoring at 13.8 points per game. She also leads in assists and 3-pointers.

St. Vincent is 20-5 this season — the 14th time the program has reached at least 20 wins — and notched its 500th victory by beating Thomas More last Saturday.

It also was the 500th career win for St. Vincent coach Kristen Zawacki, who started the program in 1983-84.

"It was pretty cool to be a part of that," Baroffio said. "We didn't even know. She didn't even mention it and kept it a secret from us, I guess because she didn't want to put us under too much pressure."

Baroffio and her teammates, though, figured it out when they saw their coach's career record in the game-day program.

No matter. The Bearcats went out and did what they had done all season: win.

"It feels pretty good to help be a part of that," Baroffio said.

Things didn't begin so smoothly.

"I was still recuperating and I was nervous," Baroffio said. "Here's this little scrawny girl coming to open gym. I just felt like people were looking at me wondering what I was doing there. The first two seasons were kind of rough. I had to learn my role."

That role has evolved.

Baroffio started 10 games as a freshman and averaged 8.7 points per contest. As a sophomore, she started 20 of the 24 games and averaged 11.1 points.

This year, Baroffio is a captain, the leading scorer and the floor leader.

Zawacki often calls Baroffio between games to talk strategy.

"Maria has been a starter for us for basically the past two years," Zawacki said. "She's shown the ability to score, and she's also improved on the defensive side of the ball."

St. Vincent begins the East Coast Athletic Conference playoffs next week.

Next season, the Bearcats become eligible to compete for a Presidents' Athletic Conference title.

St. Vincent, which was an NAIA school until the 2006-07 season, just shed its final scholarship athlete and will become a full NCAA Division III member next year.

"I'm looking forward to that," Baroffio said. "It's the one thing we haven't been able to do since I've been here: compete for a conference title."

Until then, Baroffio and her teammates aim to keep the season going as long as they can.

Quite simply, Baroffio is having too much fun to see it end.

"It's been a blast," she said. "This is the most fun I've had in a long time. Sometimes, we'll have too much fun and Zawacki will have to tell us to stop laughing. It's been a great journey."