Malverne/East Rockaway on win streak

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With its participation numbers at an all-time high, Malverne-East Rockaway’s girls soccer program is thriving and fast approaching last year’s win total.

Of the 22 on the varsity roster — the JV fields 20 — a dozen of the girls attend East Rockaway and 10 walk the halls at Malverne. Together, they’ve racked up a three-game winning streak in Conference AB-VI after going 5-10 overall (2-8 in AB-V) in 2016.

Junior Kailey Hyland, who entered the season with 66 career goals and Nassau County’s two-time defending scoring champ, registered a hat trick to lead the Lady Rockin’ Mules to a 4-1 victory at Roosevelt on Sept. 18.

“Kaylie’s a proven scorer with great ball control and a real good foot,” longtime coach Joe Lores said. “She sees constant double coverage, but that opens up other things and she can put teammates in position to score.”

Hyland has 8 goals through five games and is usually paired at forward with juniors Giavanna DeMilia, Alex Pozo and Juliet McCarthy. DeMilia scored her first goal of the year in the Roosevelt game and leads the team in assists with six. “Giavanna and Kaylie have a nice chemistry going,” Lores explained. “Giavanna gives us a physical presence and is deceptively quick. She’s a good distributor who sees the field well.”

Pozo brings another dimension to the offense as a left-footed shot. She did plenty of positive things at the JV level last season and is off to a fine start as a first-year member of the varsity with a pair of two-goal games. She scored twice in her varsity debut, a non-league loss to Valley Stream Central, and twice in a conference victory at Sewanhaka on Sept. 13. McCarthy is also up from JV and is someone Lores said can make opponents pay for focusing on Hyland. McCarthy found the net in the team’s first win of the season, 6-1 over Lawrence on Sept. 11.

The Lady Rockin’ Mules are going as deep as 10 midfielders in games. “All of them hustle and play hard,” Lores said. “We’re going by committee and we’ve got the depth to do it.” Senior Cassie Araujo is the veteran of a group that includes juniors Ally Partos, Abighail McKinney, Gaby Herrera, Caroline Ragusa and Nia Moore.

Lores said he’s pleased with the defensive strides the team made since the first two games. Junior Emily Chelius, who is used to trying to shut down opponents as the pitcher for the East Rockaway softball team, is the starting goalkeeper and also a key to the transition game thanks to her long punts. “Emily is a great athlete and her height helps in the goal,” said Lores, who revamped the defense with senior captain Gabby Walsh at stopper, sophomore Kirstie Chinchilla at sweeper, and junior Laura Millar and sophomore Hunter Vertuccio at fullback.

“Provided we don’t stub our toe along the way, we’ll have a shot to finish atop the conference if we can avenge our loss to Mineola,” Lores said.

Mineola, which won the first meeting 3-2 on Sept. 8, hosts the rematch on Oct. 3 at 4:30 p.m.