By Mike Volataggio, Staff Writer
LIU Post’s women’s soccer team has gotten their conference play off to a hot start, opening their NEC action with a tie against Mercyhurst and three straight victories against Central Connecticut State, Le Moyne, and Chicago State. A key piece to the Sharks’ success has been their senior and captain midfielder Gina Proviano.
Proviano, a Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania native, currently has career-highs with 5 goals and 11 points on the year, a steady improvement from her 2023 season where she had 8 total points.
Proviano shared how she is able to keep improving her game season to season.
“I’m definitely going to have to jump back to my hometown of Pittsburgh for that one, I credit Riverhounds, the summer team I train with, and Scott Gibson who was the coach of that team at the time and I credit my dad Mike Proviano who have both helped me tremendously. All in all just putting in a lot of time over the offseason and outworking my competition. I also want to give credit to the coaches here at LIU, coach Tom Giovatto and Jay Orban, they brought over a lot of experience with them from their previous schools and they have been the best coaches I’ve had here so far,” she said.
But it wasn’t all success and victories for Proviano and the LIU women’s soccer team starting their 2024 season. The Sharks dropped their first four non-conference games of the season before finally ticking their first notch in the win column on September 5 against Dominican University of New York 4-1, a game in which Proviano scored twice.
“The girls and I were definitely frustrated,” Proviano said. “We were playing some super good competition, New Hampshire, Quinnipiac, Albany, and all those teams, they’re all incredible organizations all with good players, but each game we lost we took a little bit of important information away from each game and a little bit more knowledge which has helped us grow since then,” Proviano said. “Getting our first win against Dominican was a great feeling, especially on our home turf with a lot of fans supporting us, but we were definitely pissed off heading into that game against Dominican and the girls brought a fire like I had never seen before.”
After being able to find their footing. The Sharks would lean on Proviano and her fellow captains, Aliyah Coulliard and Izzy Stein, to help navigate this team through a tough conference schedule
Proviano shared her thoughts on what it means to be named a captain of this LIU team for the second year in a row.
“It’s honestly, obviously such an honor to be chosen as a captain. This group of girls that we have make it so easy for me to lead. They’re the best group of girls I’ve had here in my four years. They teach me things each day just as much as I can teach them and try to lead them. It’s a great feeling,” she said.
Proviano graduated from Plum High School and was a standout star for the Mustangs during her four years. Starting all four years on the girl’s varsity soccer team, Proviano shared how she was able to be so dominant on the pitch.
“It came from a lot of the girls around me. In my Sophomore and Junior years, we were an extremely talented group. We had five out of eleven girls end up committing to play Division One soccer at schools like Pittsburgh, Bowling Green, Towson, etc. so I can’t take all the credit for how good this team was. Those girls were assisting all of my goals and I was assisting all of their goals as well. All together we made Plum a powerhouse team that year,” she said.
Off the success of her career at Plum, it was time for Proviano to decide where she wanted to continue her on-field dominance, but the COVID pandemic brought things to a screeching halt for the soccer star.
“During my four years at Plum it was when COVID hit,” Proviano said. “My recruiting started my 11th grade year and that was the same time COVID started, so there was this big dead period where athletes were not allowed to talk to college coaches for months. So I was sort of hitting the panic button, sitting there uncommitted saying ‘What am I gonna do’ but I was able to push through it. My school Plum competed in the fall and we were very lucky because COVID had shut down a lot of other schools’ athletics, so I was really fortunate to not only be able to play but to also have a good season as well,” she said. “There were a few people that I knew from Pittsburgh who were already committed to LIU for other sports so I knew a little bit about Long Island and I was interested in coming to New York. There were a few other schools I was looking at as well. I wanted to go down south, somewhere warm like a Florida school. I was also looking at some Ohio schools in the MAC conference but staying somewhat close to home is what drew me here to LIU.”
Apart from being a talented athlete, Proviano is also a talented student as well. As a health science major, Proviano discussed how she is able to balance school and sports.
“It’s tough. I’m a pretty social person so I like to go out a lot and do things, but it’s all about staying locked in and having your priorities straight. At the end of the day, school comes first and if I’m failing classes then my coaches will sit me and I won’t be able to play soccer, so for me, it’s just about focusing on what’s important and right now that’s school and winning.”
Although soccer and school are at the forefront of Priviano’s mind, she also finds time to wind down and enjoy other activities as well.
“I’m actually in the fishing club here at LIU,” Proviano states. “I started doing that about two years ago and I’m super active in that. It’s something that I use to take my mind off things, it’s also not too hard on the legs. I like being out in nature because it’s easy to get caught up in computers and technology especially in school so whenever I can get away from a screen I try to do that.”
Although the future is bright for Proviano, she shared that she is focused on the here and now and doesn’t like to try and look too far ahead.
“I love soccer and can’t imagine my life without it. I talked to my coach and discussed with him the possibility of maybe going to play overseas, but if I ultimately decided against that then I would like to get into my degree somehow, so maybe medical device sales or something along those lines. I try not to dwell on the topic too much because if I do that then it takes my mind away from being the best teammate I can be for my team now so I try to just focus on the next step in front of me rather than 20 steps from now.”
The quoted material contained in this article was courtesy of the Friday LIU Athletics edition of 88.1 FM WCWP’s “Sports Shark Tank,” with the original episode airing on Sept. 13, 2024. “Sports Shark Tank” airs Monday through Friday from 5:00-6:00 p.m. on 88.1 FM, WCWP.org, and streaming on the WCWP mobile app.
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