Ward Melville Coaches Spotlight with Stephanie Peragallo

This season the Ward Melville Lady Patriots have been one of the best teams on Long Island. They are currently 16-1 after defeating William Floyd on Saturday and have clinched a berth in the Suffolk Class A County Finals where they will be taking on Northport. Leading the charge for Ward Melville is Stephanie Peragallo who is in her first season their head coach. Peragallo’s athletic career began on the soccer field but she would also play lacrosse as way to spend time with her friends. Becoming good at the sport led her to playing travel lacrosse as well as having a successful run as a player at Hauppauge where she appeared in three county final games and won the county title her junior year.

“We made it to counties three times, my sophomore, junior, and senior year. We ended up winning it my junior year and it was the first title that Hauppauge had ever won so it was a big deal. Of the big group that I played with, about ten of us went off to play in college.”

Peragallo was a star defender at Notre Dame where she played for four years from 2013-2016. Initially she didn’t have any desire to be a coach after being involved in the game for so long. It wasn’t until her senior year of college when she was injured and rehabbing a knee injury that an opportunity to coach came about thanks to one of the physical therapists, and she gave it consideration.

“One of the physical therapists was also the head athletic trainer at Carle Place, and when he heard about my background in lacrosse said just by chance we are looking for a head coach and was wondering if you’d be interested.”

After giving it some thought she decided to give it a try and interviewed for the Carle Place head coaching position and got the job. Peragallo immediately fell in love with coaching. What she realized was that the aspects of the game that she loved wasn’t as much about playing and more so about the strategy behind the game as well as the motivation and the coaching. Coaching at Carle Place for five seasons Peragallo was able to win a couple of county titles in her time there.

Peragallo was at a cross road in her career and was unsure of what exactly she wanted to do with her life. Being a coach made her realize that having an impact on the youth was something that she wanted to do which led her to go back to school and get her masters in teaching which she finished in December of 2021. She interviewed for a position to be a substitute teacher in the Three Village School District which she got, and said to herself that this was where she wanted to be. Now she is a full time teacher after applying for an opening and also took over as the head coach of the girls varsity lacrosse team with that spot being open as well.

Taking over a team that is immensely talented, Peragallo was made aware of the level of talent she was inheriting and although she was nervous at first, she found that she’s able to take her experiences from when she was in college and apply it to the players that she has now.

Ward Melville participated in the LILJ High School Winter League where they won the Dragonfly Championship. Their success in December and January has translated onto the turf this spring. One of their signature wins this season was against Garden City in the second game of the season in which they trailed by as many as six goals before storming a comeback. That win for Peragallo and the Patriots has given them the belief that they can come back against anyone and that they are never out of a game.

Leading into the County Finals, they only have one loss on the season which came against Northport. Peragallo felt that the first time they played against Northport which the Tigers won 9-8, they needed to prove that they could compete against them.

“We needed to prove to ourselves that we could be in a game with them, and win or lose we were able to do that.”

Despite the sadness from some of the players of losing that game, she instilled belief in her team that they have the ability to compete with them and that not one individual play is the reason for the defeat.

With this upcoming matchup against them being for the county title, Peragallo is excited to see how her players step up against what she acknowledges is a great opponent that has great players and is very well coached. Ward Melville will be looking to take down Northport and advance to Long Island Championship at Stony Brook University. The Class A County Finals will be Wednesday, May 25th at Newfield High School at 3:00.

 

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