Yms Soccer Tournament

Fomer Pennington standout Totaro proving successful at LaGrange, athletically ...

For the Ewing resident, her years are full of challenging academics and as much soccer and lacrosse as the seasons will allow.

Totaro recently completed her first women’s lacrosse season at LaGrange College. An average of 15 saves per game put her at No. 2 in the nation for Division III NCAA lacrosse goalies. She is also among the national leaders for total saves for the season (167) and ranks first in her conference.

The first part of the school year was also very successful for Totaro who posted a 4.0 GPA. She was named the Most Valuable Player of the LaGrange women’s soccer team.

Totaro, who was selected to Great South Athletic Conference All-Freshman Women’s Soccer Team, started 14 games in goal. She had 2.77 goals-against average, recorded 106 saves and had .731 saves percentage and posted three shutouts.

A long-time member of the YMS Comets Premier Soccer team, she has also named a captain for the LaGrange squad for the fall.

Totaro earned The Red Raiders Award for Mental Toughness at Pennington, where she excelled in many things including academics, soccer and lacrosse.

MERCER CCC

Mark Pratico of Hamilton and Jessica Villalba of Cookstown each received a Dr. Cynthia Schaffer Memorial Scholarship and an MCCC Athletics Scholarship during Honors Convocation preceding commencement on May 26.

A former student-athlete a Notre Dame High School, Pratico says he was concerned about making the transition to the demanding level played at Mercer. But, Pratico’s worries were unnecessary as he spent two seasons with the Vikings men’s soccer team, his first year under coach Charlie Inverso and the other playing for Larry Povia.

“I became a better player,” said Pratico, who worked hard and earned a spot of defense and says he appreciated the camaraderie. “I played with guys from all over the world. I was happy to play alongside them.”

This year, the Vikings regained the Region 19 title and fell one game short of a trip to the NJCAA national tournament.

A dean’s list student, Pratico studied liberal arts at Mercer and will transfer to Rider University to prepare for a career as a secondary English teacher. He also hopes to get some playing time under his former MCCC coaches.

Soccer | SOCCER: Charlotte Moran Remembered At Score For The Cure

BucksLocalSports.com Editor

Brooks, who now plays Division I soccer at the University on North Carolina when she’s not playing for Team USA, is currently in Sweden competing for the US Under-23 Women’s National team. Before the games got underway, a small presentation was made in which a signed photo of Amber was presented to Ed Moran.

Ed is the son of Charlotte Moran, the Southampton woman for whom the tournament was first dedicated. For more than 20 years, Moran, who died in 2009 after a long battle with cancer, was greatly involved with youth soccer, the Pennsylvania Olympic Development Program (ODP) and Region One ODP. As executive director of the Eastern Pennsylvania Youth Soccer Association (EPYSA), Charlotte promoted professional women’s soccer leagues and encouraged clubs and schools to offer girls soccer.

The photo presented to Ed Moran depicts Brooks in her Team USA uniform standing for the National Anthem prior to the Americans’ quarterfinal in the U-20 Women’s World Cup last summer in Germany. Brooks signed the photo with the signature, “Always playing for Charlotte.”

After Moran succumbed to pancreatic cancer in May of 2009, Brooks and her former Pennington classmate Heidi Sabatura — ODP Players themselves – decided the funds raised by Score For The Cure should go to the Lustgarten Foundation for Pancreatic Cancer Research.

Last year, Pennington graduates Alexa DeMaio and Renee Washington directed the second Score For The Cure tournament dedicated to Moran’s memory. This year, Shannon Roche of Yardley and Meg Castronova of Lawrenceville ran things. Despite impending threats from Mother Nature, the tournament for girls, ages 10 to 14, was again a huge success, taking in $4,400 this year.

Last Friday over the course of three-plus hours at the riverfront park, approximately 100 girl soccer players lined the turf at Macclesfield for the three-on-three tourney, each playing in at least four games.

During intermission, directors raffled off various items collected from Red Raiders’ past who took once took the soccer field at Pennington. The raffle took in a lot of money this year as soccer memorabilia was gathered from Pennington alums now playing collegiate soccer in all corners of the U.S. including Kait Kerr (Duke), Hannah Knudsen (Wesleyan), Alexa DeMaio (Vermont), Alexa Carugati (Villanova), Washington (LaSalle) and Brooks (UNC).