VSN competitive despite adversity

Valley Stream North’s girls’ basketball team has had a bit of a roller coaster season, the low point of which came early when captain and leading scorer Elena Magno, one of its five seniors, went down with a knee injury after three games.
“I think it affected everyone on the team, including the coaches,” head coach Dan Lodato said. “We started off 3-0, everyone was having fun but then when one of your leaders goes down, it’s not easy to refocus and get back into that groove. There are a lot of really talented teams in our conference so we battled to get our feet back under us.”
The Spartans (6-7 overall) have recently grabbed victories over Roosevelt and Valley Stream South, which has them trending in the right direction going into the final four games. North has doubled last season’s win total and a big reason why has been newcomer Jasmine Harrison.
“Since Elena went down, Jasmine has started every game for us after being called up from JV and she’s just plugged right into lineup seamlessly,” Lodato said of the sophmore. “She’s an aggressive, fast player who joins Paige Fessler and Alessia Nunnari as our underclassmen starters.”
Senior Isabella Feldman has been the driving force for the defense while also being a captain both on and off the court.

“Feldman’s a senior so she is definitely the leader of the bunch,” Lodato said. “If you’re watching the game or just near the court you’ll aways hear here telling her teammates where to go or pointing out the best player on the other team. She also gives coach I suggestions on what she thinks the defensive scheme should look like.”
The future is bright for the Spartans and Lodato’s hope is that the underclassmen will only get better with more experience. They have been contributing big numbers for team. Nunnari, a sophomore, scored a team-high 24 points in the win over Valley Stream South last Friday, while Fessler, a freshman, poured in 17 against Roosevelt.
“[Fessler] is faster than everybody, can jump the highest and she’s just made great strides this year on both sides of the ball.” Lodato said. “Nunnari is our best shooter and again, she’s another one of those girls that played varsity as a freshman last year si the future is bright.”
Valley Stream’s North last four games will be a challenge: Lynbrook, Floral Park, Wantagh and Plainedge all knocked off the Spartans the first time around the conference slate.
“I think with the last time we saw all of those schools, they didn’t really get us at our best,” Lodato said. “It was hard for our freshmen and sophomores to get the feel of it early on, but now I think our opponents are going to get a really good version of our team towards the end of the year. I’m hoping that we can keep our momentum going, winning two of our last three and grab one or two more before the season’s over to cap off a really solid year.”