By Joseph Staszewski
Christ the King provided a different type of change for Sydney Zambrotta, and in the process finally gave the nomadic guard a place to call home.
The Royals were her fourth varsity team in four years dating back to seventh-grade. Zambrotta played girls’ basketball at Upper Room, North Babylon and St. John the Baptist before transferring to the Middle Village school last season as a sophomore.
The 5-foot-8, rising junior guard has no plans on going anywhere else. She immediately felt part of the family.
“It feels like this will be the school I finish my high school career with and it’s just a great fit,” Zambrotta said.
While she was used to transitioning to a new school, she also had to adjust her game to fit into the Royals’ plans. Zambrotta grew up being a star even at a young age. She set the Long Island single-game scoring record by pouring in 63 points for Upper Room as an eight-grader and has been a starter the majority of her career.
Zambrotta, who has a host of Division I colleges interested in her, was asked to be a key reserve at Christ the King with veteran players ahead of her. She accepted the role, but needed to adjust to it before ultimately succeeding. The combo guard was a big reason CK won the CHSAA Brooklyn/Queens title and did not lose a game from late December until falling to Nazareth in the Catholic state semifinals.
“It took a while to get used to coming off the bench,” Zambrotta said. “But after that I knew I was going to come off the bench. I just knew I had to contribute to the game in order for the team to win.”
What makes her special is she can help in so many ways. Zambrotta was an instant spark off the bench on both ends of the floor. Sometimes she was the team’s third scoring option behind McDonald’s All-American Sierra Calhoun and star forward Kollyns Scarbrough. Zambrotta scored 12 points, including eight straight with two three-pointers, in a regular season win over Nazareth.
Other times she started the Royals’ transition offense with her play on defense or helped them easily escape defensive pressure with her ball handling skills. Zambrotta brings toughness and competitiveness that sometimes gets lost in her point totals and offensive flare.
“There were very few teams that could trap her full court because she is just that strong, that quick and she sees the floor,” Mackey said.
Zambrotta excelled at tryouts for the USA Basketball Under-17 team in late May and made it to the final round of cuts before missing out on making the roster with some of the nation’s best players.
Her travel ball season ended abruptly. She needed six stitches on the bridge of her nose after trying to force a jump ball and bashing faces with a defender late in the close game at the USJN championships last weekend.
She has been working on improving her pull-up jumper. Mackey believes she can also be one of the city’s top defenders if she puts her mind to it.
“She’s got some work to do, but I think she really has potential,” he said.
The opportunity to realize all of it will be there as Zambrotta moves into the starting lineup for a CK team trying to find its identity next season. She, Dominique Toussaint, Kaela Kinder, Ashley Howell and Cynthia Perez all have varsity experience, but not the experience of playing with each other as a unit.
Zambrotta is just happy her focus can be on building off her experience from last year and trying to bring things together as the Royals try to book their first trip to the state Federation tournament since 2010.
“Now I feel like I can settle down and stop worrying, ‘Do I have to go to this school, that school?’” Zambrotta said. “I know that I’m staying at King for the next two years. I can just worry about building my game up to hopefully get a championship next year.”
