Pace women’s lacrosse goalkeeper Alissa Silvestri did not give doctors much emotion whenever she received shots as a child and now she is unfazed when attackers and midfielders attempt to shoot goals past her.

The Rockland County native was inspired to take up lacrosse in the fifth grade after her older sister, Victoria, started. She was a midfielder first, but her high school team had a need for a goalkeeper. Silvestri figured she would step up.

“My high school team didn’t have a goalie so the coach just said ‘who wants to be goal,’ I offered, and I like it better than being on the field,” the five-foot-two goalie said. “Once I stepped foot in goal in high school, I knew that I wanted to be a goalie.”

Stepping up for the team speaks to what kind of teammate she is. It is a mindset of hers that also brought her here to Pace. She wanted to be a part of a young team.

Last season was the inaugural season for women’s lacrosse, and growing pains as well as an all-freshmen roster were present.

“When I first started talking to [the team], I knew they were going to be my best friends, and I think of most of them as family now,” said Silvestri, who is fifth in the NE-10 conference with 22 saves as of March 14. “I think with our team chemistry we can win a lot more games and kind of be better than we were last year, and hopefully we’ll make the playoffs. Beating teams that beat us last year would be a great feeling.”

Silvestri had her own growing pains last year allowing 183 goals against her stats. It comes with the territory of a goalie, such as when she allowed two go-ahead goals to give Merrimack a 9-8 win last year.

“People just don’t understand what it’s like to be a goalie so they don’t get the mental aspect of it,” Silvestri said. “If I let in a goal late in the game and now we’re tied or losing it’s hard to keep your head up because you blame yourself. There are times I can see a shot go in and think ‘Oh I could have stopped that.’”

Hardworking is how she defines herself and that’s what attests to her success thus far in 2016.

Silvestri was named NE-10 Conference Women’s Lacrosse Goalkeeper of the Week on Monday for her eight saves in the 19-2 victory over Caldwell University, which makes her the first Setter to ever win it.

“It’s definitely a great feeling and I still feel like I could do better, but it feels good to get an award,” said Silvestri, who had 11 saves in women’s lacrosse’s 16-0 shutout of the University of Bridgeport on Monday.

Silvestri’s a diehard New York Rangers fan and models her game and imitates goalie Henrik Lundqvist. She likes to pretend to be him by purposely catching or deflecting shots with her helmet.

“If a shot’s coming close to my face, sometimes I’ll just move my helmet instead of moving my stick,” Silvestri said.

It works most of the time and doesn’t affect the biopsychology major’s plans on becoming a physical therapist.

How she goes about achieving that goal is different from how she plans on defending the next goal for the Pace Setters.