HAUPPAUGE, N.Y. (LISN) — 4 of the 13 players on Longwood’s 2026-27 roster filing — Nicholas Zaino, Preston Doepp, Ryan Hickson and Giovanni Cipriani — were on the Developmental team in 2023-24, the Freshman team in 2024-25 and their Junior Varsity team last season. They have moved up a level together in each of the last 2 years. This September there is one more rung, and Longwood is putting a Varsity team back on it.
They are not arriving empty-handed. Nicholas Shepherd had 14 goals and 23 assists on Junior Varsity last season. Michael Gaudiello scored 23 goals on the same team, Brandon Nicotri put up 13 goals and 17 assists, and Ryan Fink got to Junior Varsity by scoring 43 goals at the Developmental level the year before.
12 of the 13 were in the Longwood program in 2025-26, and the 13th is new to our files. The last Longwood Varsity season was 2023-24, so this is a group arriving at Varsity together, one that has spent three years coming up through the program and now gets to take the last step the same way.
Where They Come From
Longwood last put a Varsity team on the ice in 2023-24. The program never stopped running underneath that. Junior Varsity, Freshman and Developmental teams have filled every season since, and this filing is what those three years produced, handed up all at once.
A separate group of four players has been on the Junior Varsity in each of the last three seasons: Nicotri, Gaudiello, defenseman Christopher Ballaro and goaltender Kasper Sztabinski. Nobody else on the sheet has that much time at one level, and together they have been part of nearly every stage of Longwood’s recent development.
Behind them is the group that has climbed in lockstep. Nicholas Zaino, Preston Doepp, Ryan Hickson and Giovanni Cipriani were all at the Developmental level in 2023-24, all with Longwood White at the Freshman level in 2024-25, and all on Junior Varsity last season. Four players, three seasons, the same three teams in the same order. Cipriani is the one who was doing two jobs at once last year. He carries both Longwood White and Junior Varsity on his 2025-26 record, moving between the two.
Shepherd came the same way one year ahead of them, Developmental in 2023-24 and then two full Junior Varsity seasons. Mark Nocerino went from Longwood White at the Freshman level in 2024-25 to Junior Varsity last season. And Fink went from Longwood Green at the Developmental level in 2024-25 straight to Junior Varsity a year later, the same jump Shepherd and Maresca made a season earlier.
What that adds up to is a roster built almost entirely from within the Longwood program. The position mix is 7 forwards, 4 defensemen and 2 goaltenders.
Nicholas Shepherd
Shepherd comes up off a 37-point Junior Varsity season, 14 goals and 23 assists in 2025-26. He set up more than he finished, by nine.
It was his second full Junior Varsity season. He was at the Developmental level in 2023-24, moved to Junior Varsity in 2024-25 and stayed there last season. Jeremy Maresca followed the same path alongside him, while Ryan Fink made the Developmental-to-JV jump one year later. He wears No. 97.
A player with 23 assists is a player who has been finding his linemates consistently, and on a thirteen-man sheet that matters more than it would on a twenty-man one. He will get minutes, and he will get them with people he has played with since the Developmental team.
The Forwards
Michael Gaudiello (F, 23 goals) had the puck going in last season. He scored 23 times on Junior Varsity and has been on that team for three straight years, 2023-24 through 2025-26. He wears No. 86.
Brandon Nicotri (F, 13-17—30) has the same three-season Junior Varsity run and finished last season with 30 points, split almost evenly between goals and assists. He and Gaudiello have been Junior Varsity teammates for all three of those seasons, and Shepherd has been there for the last two. If Longwood has a line already assembled, it has been assembled for a while. Jeremy Maresca (F, 18-7—25) scored more Junior Varsity goals last season than anyone on the filing except Gaudiello, and he has come the same way: 16 points at the Developmental level in 2023-24, 11 on Junior Varsity the year after, then 25 last season. He wears No. 19.
Ryan Fink (F) scored 43 goals for Longwood Green at the Developmental level in 2024-25 and moved straight up to Junior Varsity for 2025-26, where he had 9-7—16 in 21 games. He is one of several on the filing who came up without a Freshman season. He is No. 93.
Nicholas Zaino (F) and Preston Doepp (F) round out the forward group, and their records read as one line: Developmental in 2023-24, Longwood White at the Freshman level in 2024-25, Junior Varsity in 2025-26. Zaino takes No. 9 and Doepp No. 11. Both have been in the program every season we hold, and both have gone up a level in each of the last two.
Defense
Christopher Ballaro (D, No. 32) is the most experienced defenseman at the Junior Varsity level on the sheet. He has played the last three seasons on the Longwood Junior Varsity, 2023-24 through 2025-26, which is as much continuity as any defenseman on this roster has, and he added 5 goals and 7 assists in 8 Junior Varsity games last season.
Ryan Hickson (D, No. 14) and Giovanni Cipriani (D, No. 55) come up on the same track as Zaino and Doepp: Developmental in 2023-24, Longwood White at the Freshman level in 2024-25, Junior Varsity in 2025-26. Cipriani split last season between Longwood White, where he played 18 games, and Junior Varsity, where his one appearance came in goal. It is the sort of season that gets a player used to a lot of different jobs.
Taibibi Connor (D, No. 33) is the fourth defenseman on the filing and does not appear in our files under that name.
In Goal
Longwood files two goaltenders, and both have multiple seasons of experience at the Freshman and Junior Varsity levels.
Kasper Sztabinski (G, No. 54) has been part of the Junior Varsity goaltending group for 3 consecutive seasons, 2023-24 through 2025-26. That is the longest run of any goaltender on the filing, and as long a run at one level as anyone here has. He has taken 20 Junior Varsity starts over the last two seasons, 11 in 2024-25 and 9 last year, so very little about the rhythm of a season will be new to him.
Mark Nocerino (G, No. 33) came into the program from Smithtown/Hauppauge, where he was a Freshman-team goaltender in 2023-24. He took 10 starts in the Longwood White net at the Freshman level in 2024-25, then 12 of the Junior Varsity’s 22 starts last season, and he has already handled a move up a level once.
Both go into September with Junior Varsity starts behind them, giving Longwood two experienced options as it makes the move back to Varsity.
What’s Next
The season opens Monday, Sept. 14, against Kings Park/Commack, Longwood’s first Varsity game since 2023-24, and closes Wednesday, Jan. 27, against East Islip. Longwood comes back into a division reshaped to twelve teams this season, with Eastport-South Manor and first-year St. Mary’s joining the Varsity level and Patchogue-Medford and Middle Country no longer in it. The quarterfinals are set for Feb. 1, the semifinals Feb. 3 and a best-of-three final for Feb. 5-10. The division standings update through the season, and SCHSHL Varsity games stream on the LI Sports Network YouTube channel.
What Longwood has is the core of a Junior Varsity group that stayed together and is now moving up: Shepherd’s 37 points, Gaudiello’s 23 goals, Nicotri’s 30, Fink’s 43 at the Developmental level the year before that, a defenseman in Ballaro with three seasons on the blue line and two goaltenders who have each carried a season. Nearly everyone on this sheet is walking into a room they already know. Longwood Varsity hockey is back on the calendar for the first time since 2023-24, and the group doing it has been building toward the date for three years.
Games to Circle
Mon., Sept. 14: Kings Park/Commack. Longwood’s first Varsity game since 2023-24 comes against a team that reached the semifinal last season, past Sachem in a 5-4 overtime quarterfinal before Smithtown/Hauppauge ended the run. The return starts against a team that was still playing deep into the bracket.
Sun., Oct. 18: St. Mary’s. Two programs meeting for the first time. St. Mary’s is playing its first Varsity season and Longwood is back after two years away, so neither side has a book on the other.
Mon., Oct. 19: St. Anthony’s. The defending champion, the day after St. Mary’s. St. Anthony’s took the county final from Smithtown/Hauppauge in three and then the Long Island Championship 3-2 over Long Beach in March. It is Longwood’s first Varsity look at them since coming back up.
Wed., Jan. 27: East Islip. The schedule closes against one of only three teams to beat St. Anthony’s in the regular season last year, a 3-2 result on a goal with 16 seconds left in October. East Islip finished 15-5.
2026-27 Longwood Varsity Roster
| No. | Player | Pos. | 2025-26 |
|---|---|---|---|
| 9 | Nicholas Zaino | F | JV, 2-1—3 |
| 11 | Preston Doepp | F | JV, 2-6—8 |
| 14 | Ryan Hickson | D | JV, 5-5—10 |
| 19 | Jeremy Maresca | F | JV, 18-7—25 |
| 32 | Christopher Ballaro | D | JV, 5-7—12 |
| 33 | Taibibi Connor | D | — |
| 33 | Mark Nocerino | G | JV, 12 starts |
| 54 | Kasper Sztabinski | G | JV, 9 starts |
| 55 | Giovanni Cipriani | D | Freshman, 0-4—4; 1 JV game |
| 64 | Brandon Nicotri | F | JV, 13-17—30 |
| 86 | Michael Gaudiello | F | JV, 23-8—31 |
| 93 | Ryan Fink | F | JV, 9-7—16 |
| 97 | Nicholas Shepherd | F | JV, 14-23—37 |
Numbers and positions come from the club’s 2026-27 roster filing, which does not give class years. Scoring lines are goals-assists—points from the Junior Varsity, from lihockey.com. Longwood last fielded a Varsity team in 2023-24, so no player on this roster carries a Varsity line.