Bittersweet day as Bruins look to future

Broadneck’s Gabarra among players announcing choices

Around the happy camera flashes, cupcakes and placards with Broadneck seniors’ names and future colleges on them, some were a tad bittersweet on National Signing Day on Wednesday.

“It’s heartbreaking that I’ll never get this experience again,” said Bruins soccer player Talia Gabarra, “but I’m looking toward the future, too.”

Gabarra is bound for Central Florida, and not Navy, where her mother, Carin Gabarra, has coached the women’s soccer team since its inaugural season in 1993.

“Technically, I grew up at Navy. I’m there every single day doing physical therapy for my knee. UCF is so different in the sense that I get to be with myteamevery day. It’s not as strict,” Talia Gabarra said. “But Navy’s amazing.”

Carin Gabarra is equally as content that her daughter, whom she has never coached, has chosen her own road to follow.

“She’s very careful and took her time in the recruiting process, spent time getting to know the programs and who her coaches might be and the staff — really wanting to find the perfect fit, not just perfect sports fit or perfect academic fit, perfect state,” the coach said. “She wanted to have the great experience.”

Talia Gabarra missed her final season with Broadneck due to injury. It was under that restriction, though, that she’d learned lessons that she hadn’t before.

Coach John Camm named her captain regardless of her health, and from the sidelines, she’d been able to understand what her mother said was a favorite quote from retired U.S. women’s national team memberAbbyWambach — “If you’re not a leader on the bench, don’t call yourself a leader on the field.”

“I think it really helped her leadership side of the game,” the Navy coach said. “She learned things by watching, she learned coaching by watching the coaches do their thing. … She learned it’s a different viewpoint, and it’s super important.”

Camm admired how all three of his seniors signing National Letters of Intent on Wednesday had matured as a class. Gabarra, Anna Moyer (Frostburg) and Caleigh Fletcher (Dickinson), had helped pilot the Bruins to state titles in 2015 and 2017, and had handled the challenges of the 2018 season with grace.

“It’s bittersweet. These kids have done so much for these program,” he said. “They’ve gotten us to two state championships, two regional championships, and most importantly, they’ve set an example for the kids that are still here.”

Two Bruins, Caelan Shephard (Buffalo) and Ethon Williams (Boston College) will officially sign on the designated football day in December. But every other athlete of the 13 inking their commitments on Wednesday will take the field as a college player with sticks (or bats) in their hand.

Megan Munley, who committed to Maryland field hockey before her junior year, already has her sights locked onthe future, and has for a long, long time.

“My dad is actually an alumni at Maryland, he (raised) me around there and the athletics,” she said.“It was a dream of mine to go there.”

For Munley, it wasn’t just a lifelong anticipation of becoming a Terp that set her path. It certainly helped that Maryland field hockey, under the guise of 31-season head coach Missy Meharg, are bound for yet another Final Four this fall.

“The thing you want to look at when you’re in the recruiting process is their reputation with the school, make sure they have good standing and that they’re going to betherefor awhile,” Munley said. “And she (Meharg) is so knowledgeable. I want to learn from the best.”

Meharg, a longtime Severna Park resident who has coached — and is currently coaching — numerous Anne Arundel County players, is equally jazzed to add the Broadneck standout to her ranks.

“Very excited to have her. … and what’s cool about her is she can play anywhere,” Meharg said. “She’s coming in January, what they call ‘gray-shirting,’ so that’s an exciting piece for her to start the 2019 season in January.”

Keegan Houser, one of five Bruins penning to play lacrosse, is the only one of the baker’s dozen headed to Navy this year.

His interest in the Mids piqued when they visited him during a lacrosse tournament in his junior year, and it expanded into the Naval career opportunities that the school provides afterward.

Now, he has two goals: pick up a state title as a Bruin andthenget to the other players healready thinks of as teammates.

“Playing with my boys,” Houser said. “Trying to win a title.”