TRUMBULL,—St. Joseph High School is proud to recognize and celebrate two scholar-athletes. Alexa Pino (Class of 2025), named Gatorade Connecticut Girls Soccer Player of the Year and Sean Curley (Class of 2023), selected as a member of the National Football Foundation’s Team of Distinction.
Pino is the sixth Gatorade Connecticut Girls Soccer Player of the Year to be chosen from St. Joseph High School. The award recognizes not only outstanding athletic excellence, but high standards of academic achievement and exemplary character demonstrated on and off the field.
Pino is now a finalist for the prestigious Gatorade National Girls Soccer Player of the Year. The St. Joes Sophomore led her team to a 21-1-1 record and the Class L state championship this past season. Pino scored 32 goals and passed for 17 assists. A 2022 United Soccer Coaches All-American selection, Pino is a two-time First Team All-State honoree. She concluded her sophomore year with 58 goals and 28 assists in her prep soccer career.
Pino also volunteers locally as part of a fundraising campaign to benefit Al’s Angels and has donated her time on behalf of her school’s Special Olympics Unified Basketball program. She has maintained a weighted A average in the classroom and will begin her junior year of high school this fall.
Each year, the National Football Foundation’s Chapter Network recognizes 79 stellar high school scholar-athletes from across the country for their combined performance on the football field, in the classroom, and in the community. On June 22, the NFF announced that from a pool of 3,500 scholar-athletes identified by a nationwide Chapter Network, they had selected 79 members of the 2023 NFF Team of Distinction, including Sean Curley. The members of the team all played their final high school football season during the 2022-23 school year. As part of the award, all of the honorees will be part of a permanent digital display at the Chick-fil-A College Football Hall of Fame in Atlanta.
Criteria to make the NFF’s Team of Distinction include academic achievement, athletic accolades and community involvement. Each chapter is limited to one honoree, distinguishing them as the top scholar-athlete from all the high schools covered by the chapter.
St. Joseph High School’s scholar-athlete, Sean Curley, was nominated by the NFF DeSantis-McDougall/Fairfield County Chapter (CT). Sean holds a 4.0 grade point average, was the recipient of the Maria Taylor Character Award, and was a member of the National Honor Society and Presidential Honor Roll. Sean will attend Xavier University in the Fall of 2023.
