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ARIEL VIEW Edwards scored 23 points in Penn State's season-opening victory over St. Francis. She followed it up with 17 points in a win against Fordham. Mark Selders/Penn State Athletic Communications hopes to play professional basketball after she's finished at Penn State, and she'll have to complete more coursework before she can enroll in medical school. In the meantime, she performed a bit of surgery on the first two opponents of Penn State's 2013-14 season. The senior guard/forward scored 23 points in the Lady Lions' opener against St. Francis, then followed with a 17-point outburst against Fordham. She shot 70 percent from the floor in those games, prompting Fordham coach Stephanie Gaitley to refer to her as Penn State's "unsung hero. With " coach Coquese Washington eager to see Edwards emerge as a scoring threat to complement guards Maggie Lucas and Dara Taylor, those performances could hardly have been more encouraging. "She's got to be aggressive, Washington " said. "We're encouraging her to be aggressive, and that's a different role for her. Last year she was in the role of fitting in and letting things come to her. This year, she's got to be more aggressive and assertive. " Edwards came off the bench for most of her first three seasons at Penn State, steadily improving her numbers each year. As a junior, she averaged 7.9 points and 3.2 rebounds and came on strong in the NCAA Tournament, finishing with 13 points in 15 minutes in a season-ending loss to LSU in the second round. The postseason success gave Edwards a confidence boost heading into her final year. "It was interesting to see what I could do against a higher level of competition, and on a big stage, she said. "Up " until that point, I didn't feel like I had the most experience on the team. Maggie had played a lot since she was a freshman and had a lot of big moments. I was still a young player in comparison. I felt like that was my big moment to get some experience and learn what it takes to play this game. " The daughter of a high school basketball coach, Edwards grew up in Elmont, N.Y., playing against her older brother Johnathan, who would go on to play Division I basketball at Radford. In high school, she averaged 17.5 points and 11.5 rebounds as a senior, leading Christ the

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