JEANNETTE - It's easy to pick out Jamie Morrison in a crowd.
All you have to do is look for the scar running along the outside of her left knee.
"I don't even think about it anymore," Morrison said. "It's still there, and it's got a couple of inches showing."
It's even easier when she's on the soccer field. Just wait and see who scores the most goals.
Morrison has torn up the competition throughout the early part of the season. In her first three games, she scored a WPIAL-leading 14 goals.
"She's a very poised player, very mature and very patient," Jeannette coach Lou Conte said. "Then you add all that to the fact she's not very big but very strong and muscular and fast and, overall, she's one of the best players I've had the pleasure of coaching."
Two years ago, it was doubtful whether Morrison would ever get back to playing at a high level. She tore her anterior cruciate ligament and missed her sophomore season.
"When you think of a player who has come back from that, with the surgery and the rehab, not to mention she came back to play at that level, it's amazing," Conte said.
In her first season back, Morrison finished third in the WPIAL in scoring with 40 goals. That output grabbed the attention of collegiate coaches and has her on the radar as one of the more heavily recruited soccer players in the area.
So far she has had official visits to Penn State and St. Francis, had one planned for the United States Naval Academy and returned Monday from a four-and-a-half hour trip to Marshall just in time to take the field for the Lady Jayhawks' game against Waynesburg.
"I got to talk to the coach, watched them play a game, see the formations they play in and talked to the advisors," Morrison said of her visit to Marshall. "It gave me a good idea of the academics that they offer, and it went really well."
Even with three visits under her belt and a fourth coming up, she is no closer to committing than she was before. When she finally does, however, there isn't much doubt from her current coach that she'll do well.
"I really do," Conte said. "If she wants to dedicate herself, she can play well at the Division I level because she has all those things. She just handles herself very well."
She also deflects all of the accolades she receives to the team as a whole -- a Lady Jayhawks squad that started the year 3-0, 2-0 in Section 1-AA, notched 22 goals and was unscored upon defensively. "We've been playing really well together as a team," Morrison said. "Hopefully, we can continue that for the rest of our season."
Still, ever with her gaudy goal-scoring numbers, she hasn't slighted her teammates by hawking for the ball at every opportunity.
"She's been on a roll, but she's been involved in other scoring plays," Conte said. "She distributes balls to other players, so she's not selfish, but when she sees the shot she takes it."
