STONY BROOK, N.Y. — Hayley Hunt already was a three-sport athlete when she followed in her sister's footsteps and enrolled at William Penn Charter School in her native Philadelphia.

By the time Hunt graduated this past spring, she ended up excelling at two sports that she had never even heard of upon her arrival at the private school.

Hunt obliterated school records in water polo and accepted a college scholarship in lacrosse … at a university she initially was reluctant to visit, no less.

She now is a freshman goalie and health science major at Stony Brook, prepping for a career as a neurosurgeon after what she labels a medical miracle involving her father.

"I came on my visit," Hunt recalled. "And sometime during my trip, I was like, 'Mom, I love this place. I really want to go here.'"

Hunt's seventh-grade math teacher, Charlie Brown, had seen her throw a softball as a catcher and proposed she try water polo the following fall on the high school team. At the time, Hunt already was playing field hockey and basketball too, and figured basketball was her likely collegiate sport.

"I was like, 'All right. I'll give it a try. I have no idea what this sport is, but I used to swim competitively,'" Hunt said. "I actually got pretty good at water polo. Everyone was quite surprised because it was my first time ever playing. I was so used to throwing from softball. Having a hard shot will make you 10 times better at water polo."

Hunt competed on the high school team coached by Brown from eighth grade all the way through her senior year. And though she ultimately decided to play lacrosse at Stony Brook, she ended up setting William Penn Charter School records in the pool.

Hunt owns the top three single-season goals totals in school history (74, 68 and 61). Her school-record career goals total of 266 is nearly 70 more than the second-place occupant.

Hunt's older sister Ondrea had set the tone for athletic prowess at the school, playing on the varsity football team in addition to softball.

"She was like 5-foot-1, not big at all, and playing on the D-line," Hunt said.

Hunt had started playing lacrosse at the private school shortly before she picked up water polo — "which is pretty late to start lacrosse," she noted. "Everyone starts in second grade or fourth grade or something like that."

Like water polo, she had no knowledge of lacrosse until arriving at the school.

"To be honest, I was never going to attempt to play it," Hunt said. "And then in the seventh grade I was playing softball, and the softball coach's sister was the lacrosse coach. So the lacrosse coach was like, 'Hey you should really come out for the team. We need a goalie. I think you'd be really good at it.'

"She and her sister actually got into an argument about it because her sister wanted to keep me for softball, and the lacrosse coach wanted me to play lacrosse. I was like, 'I'll give lacrosse a shot.'

"I played almost every sport known to man since I was like four years old. I really enjoyed lacrosse. But until eighth grade year, I really thought I was going to go to college for basketball. And when I was going through the lacrosse recruitment process, I thought I was going to go for water polo because, in tournaments, colleges would come. It's big in the Ivy League and on the West Coast. I had no inkling I was going to go to college for lacrosse until maybe the beginning of my ninth-grade year, when I started getting offers."

Stony Brook was the final official visit for Hunt during the recruiting process. And, truth be told, she needed convincing to take the trip to Long Island because she had already narrowed her list to three finalists.

Hunt's high school lacrosse coach, Colleen Magarity, knew Stony Brook assistant coach Kim Hillier and implored Hunt to make the trip.

Hunt acceded. And two days after her visit, she committed to the Seawolves.

Hunt had been interested in the medical field for a long time, so Stony Brook had the proper coursework too.

Her father Ondre's stroke last year steered her interest specifically to neurosurgery. 

"Before he went into surgery, the neurosurgeon came in and said, 'Your dad has an 80 percent chance of dying on the table,'" Hunt said. "Right before the doctor left, he essentially said, 'He needs a miracle to live.'

"My dad is still here. He's still kicking and doing his thing. He had an 11-centimeter blood clot that went from his carotid artery to the back of his head. I knew I wanted to go into medicine. But after I saw the miracle that literally happened in front of my eyes with what the neurosurgeon and his team pulled off, I realized I really wanted to be a neurosurgeon. It hit home."