Piccirillo keeps busy

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Angelina Piccirillo (24), of Naugatuck, earned NSCAA All-New England honors and All-Great Northeast Athletic Conference honors in soccer this fall at Albertus Magnus College in New Haven. Once soccer season is over, Piccirillo is a guard on the Albertus women’s basketball team. -RON WAITE/PHOTOSPORTACULAR

Proper time management is key to being successful in college. It’s even more crucial for student-athletes trying to balance their lives in the classroom and on the field.

Angelina Piccirillo, of Naugatuck, has time management down to a science.

The junior at Albertus Magnus College in New Haven is majoring in criminal justice and has somehow found the time to excel in two sports, a rarity at the collegiate level.

“I’m busy that’s for sure,” said Piccirillo, a midfielder for the women’s soccer team and a guard on the basketball team. “It all comes down to time management. It seems my whole life now is on a schedule.”

Piccirillo’s parents, Mark and Mary Piccirillo, need to be on a schedule as well and were quite busy watching their daughter earn NSCAA All-New England honors and All-Great Northeast Athletic Conference honors in soccer.

The Falcons went 11-8-1 this fall and reached the GNAC championship game for the first time. They dropped a heartbreaker to Lasell, 2-1, in the championship. Piccirillo recorded the assist on the Falcons’ only goal of the game. The junior finished the season with six goals and two assists, four of those goals were game-winners.

“Earning all-league honors and All New England honors was very unexpected, because I’m more focused on our team goals than I am about personal stats,” Piccirillo said. “So I was surprised when they told me I was tied for the league with four game-winning goals.”

“In my freshman year I made the GNAC second team honors so I knew I could contribute to the team,” Piccirillo added. “Last year we struggled a bit, but I knew coming into this season my role would be a lot bigger so I just went out and gave it my best every game.”

As a freshman Piccirillo scored one goal and had six assists and was named to the All-GNAC second team. As a sophomore, she started 19 of 20 games and had two goals and four assists.

Piccirillo is just the fifth soccer player in the Falcons’ history to earn All-New England honors.

Angelina Piccirillo (10), of Naugatuck, is a guard on the Albertus Magnus College women’s basketball team in the winter and a midfielder on the soccer team in the fall. -RON WAITE/PHOTOSPORTACULAR

Piccirillo started her basketball career at Albertus Magnus by averaging 14 minutes a game as a freshman and scoring 3.7 points per game.

As a sophomore, her playing time increased to 16 minutes per game and she averaged four points per game, including four games in double figures.

This season, Piccirillo is averaging 23 minutes per game and 5.8 points per game through 10 games for the Falcons (6-4). She scored a career high 13 points to go along with seven rebounds and four assists in her first start of the season, a 117-99 win over Pine Manor.

“We have a small team so I’m getting a lot of minutes and I just go out there and try to help my team win,” Piccirillo said. “We are a young team but there is an awful lot of talent, and the league schedule starts at the beginning of the second semester so it will be interesting to see how we develop.”

Once basketball season ends, things quiet down a bit for Piccirillo.

“I don’t play sports in the spring season so I really won’t know what to do with all my free time. I’m looking forward to playing both sports again in my senior year, and I think if we stick together and work just as hard we can be as successful in soccer as we were this season.”