Briana Cunningham is not just your ordinary soccer player. She excels both as a forward and a center back. But if it were not for her older brother, Cunningham might not have played soccer.

“Every sport my brother played, I had to play,” Cunningham said. “So when my mom put him in soccer, I had to be in soccer too.”

Around the age of 12 she started playing defense for the South Texas Olympic Development Program Team and became serious about her game after four years of playing for that team. Once at N.C State, the coaches felt like she would be good as a forward more than a defensive player.

“Her speed is a big weapon for us … in the attack, but it also gets us out of trouble on defense,” sophomore defender Katie Ruiz said.

Coach Laura Kerrigan said Cunningham does well on offense.

“From the attacking end of things, she can help us better transition into attack,” Kerrigan said.

But now, midway through the season, Cunningham is switching back to her original defensive position.

“She plays well in any position that she is put in,” Ruiz said. “We were already at the end of the season. They just decided to try her back there, and she really took the challenge well.”

Cunningham is now keeping her forward skills in reserve as she has stepped into her new role as center back for the Wolfpack.

“We’re primarily going to play her in the back right now. She is just doing a very good job for us there … If we feel like we got to gamble or we are down a goal late in the game, and we absolutely need a goal, we will say, ‘All right, we need a goal. We are going to stick you up front,'” Kerrigan said. “We need a good forward to do try and go to a 3-4-3 and smack one in late.”

Ruiz said it really catches the other teams off guard with Cunningham in the back, and she will only help the team keep getting stronger.

In her new defensive position Cunningham said she feels as though she has a “strong presence.”

“It’s a lot easier to read what a forward is going to do because I know — that’s what I used to do,” Cunningham said. “When I see somebody doing something, it’s a lot easier for me to read it and then kick it off than somebody who has not played in the forward position.”

Kerrigan also said, from a defensive standpoint, Cunningham is able to read the game and cover people if a player beats one of her teammates on the outside.

Cunningham said she is making it harder for the other teams to score in her defensive position.

She has the ability to hit a long ball accurately so the team can attack, according to Kerrigan.

“She can get there and cover for us,” Kerrigan said. “She is able to find people who are open, and she is able to find people who are 30 yards or 40 yards away.”