No. 7 Ranked Garden City Lady Trojans Team Preview

Coming in at number seven in the LILJ preseason rankings are the Garden City Lady Trojans. It was a dream season last year that saw them win the Class B Long Island Championship. This year they come back looking to repeat, but will need a lot of production from the returning players to make up for the number of players who were in the class of 2021. Head Coach Dave Ettinger will be looking to see who will able to replace those that graduated.

Among those who are returning on the offensive end include Meghan Rode (Syracuse), Carla Curth (Binghamton), Caitlin McNaboe (Marist), and Marie Caccibaudo (Virginia Tech). Rode had a stellar junior year at attack where she scored 28 goals and dished out 21 assists for a 49 point season which was good for the second most on the team. Rode was also dominant in the LILJ Winter Box League where she led the team in points with 24. Curth and McNaboe are seniors on the starting midfield unit and combined for 48 points last season. Cacciabaudo scored seven goals and had two assists as just a sophomore last year.

As a team Garden City averaged just under 13 goals per game, but are without Sydney Pappas and Alex Hopkins who were the top two players in points. The two were a lethal offensive duo that combined to score 78 goals and 100 points. They will also be without Angie Suau who gave them 19 points and Maddie O’Connor totaled six points. Losing this amount of talent is tough to makeup, but the returning players are more than capable of stepping up in their absence.

The defense will be completely different as the Trojans have lost their entire defensive unit from 2021. This will make it very interesting to see how their defense looks this year after allowing under seven goals per game a year ago. Two names to look out for that could play a significant role are Gwen Liberopolous and Caterina Kephart who were both in action in the box league. The team does get back senior goalie Amanda Grimes who is very strong in the cage. Last year as a junior she was over 55% in saves, and made 41 saves in the winter box league.

Midfielders Kendal Morris, and Maureen Arendt as well as defender Mabel Overbeck are three young guns that could definitely get playing time this season as Garden City tries to fill the void of those who graduated.

Garden City plays plenty of elite teams this year across Long Island. They begin the season with an inter county battle at Ward Melville on March 26th. Other notable matchups this season include at South Side (4/4), home against Wantagh (4/9), home against Syosset (4/28), at Manhasset (4/30), and at Massapequa (5/3).

One of Garden City’s notable alumni is Jenn Medjid who is a senior at Boston College. In her four years on varsity she scored 172 goals to go along with 70 assists.

 

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