Thursday, October 1, 2026
The good vibes for the Malverne/East Rockaway girls’ soccer team have carried over from last year’s stunning turnaround campaign.
After inheriting a program that went winless the year before, head coach Alexa Adduci and assistant coach Kacie Curran have rapidly changed the culture into a winning one.
They have raced out of the gate this fall to a 5-1-1 record following an 8-4-3 season a year ago, good for third place in Conference AAA/AA-5.
What’s the winning formula?
Fun + development = success.
“I think that all the girls have a really great bond together, and it really shows on the field. It transfers over,” Adduci said. “They really do have a great foundation, which leads to our success, which is really great.”
Other tenants include selflessness with Paulina Cuthbert leading by example. A talented three-sport athlete who also competes for the basketball and flag football teams, she volunteered to play sweeper to help shore up a defense that conceded 10 goals through the first five matches, third fewest in the nine-team conference.
Also helping anchor the backline is Danilynn Fardella, who has shown tremendous growth and is now one of the senior captains who has the flexibility to also play forward if needed.
Goalkeeper Kiera Stephens is the returning conference goalkeeper of the year and excels in her communication, making sure her teammates are in the right position, and then makes saves that defy logic.
She made 45 saves in the team’s first six matches, including a season-high 11 in a defeat to unbeaten Valley Stream Central and 10 in a 3-1 victory over Roosevelt.
Alysha Lopez, who transferred into Malverne a year ago, opened the season with a hat trick in a 5-0 win over Westbury and has seven goals and one assist through the first five games of the year.
But her contribution goes beyond the scoresheet — it’s also in leadership and communication as another selfless star.
A year ago, Brianna Gonzalez was essentially relegated to a team manager as she recovered from an ACL injury suffered in flag football. But now healthy, she has been shot out of a cannon as one of the team’s top players up front, while sometimes featuring in the midfield.
An unsung hero has been freshman Arianna Chinchilla, who pulls the strings in center midfield and is willing to sacrifice her goal-scoring if it means another win.
As good as the season-opening win over Westbury was, the signs Malverne/East Rockaway has taken a step forward as a potential conference championship contender came in the other results — a 1-1 draw against Freeport and a 5-3 defeat to Valley Stream Central, a team widely considered the favorite in Conference AAA/AA-5.
Those teams are the top two in the standings and Malverne/East Rockaway held their own against both squads.
“I think that it really showed us that communication is key and building that team foundation is what we needed in order to be able to find each other and work with one another,” Adduci said.
