EAST PROVIDENCE — What’s old is new again for the East Providence High School girls’ soccer team with the start of the 2022 season as the Townies will be guided by a new coach, former program great Melissa Resendes, and will take up residence in Division I, a place they haven’t been for 17 years.

East Providence is coming off an extremely fruitful run of success due mainly to a recent bounty of terrific players as well as the strong stewardship of Angelo and Stacie Pizzi. Since 2016, the Townies won a Division III championship and played for another league title. And since the last realignment two years prior to this fall, E.P. also lost a D-II championship game appearance in overtime while posting a combined 17-3-2 record in 2020 and 2021.

Those results coupled with the enrollment of EPHS meant the Townies were just about a lock to return to Division I under the alignment formula used by the Rhode Island Interscholastic. In fact, East Providence is making a return to the state’s top tier for the first time since just before Resendes stopped banging home goal-after-goal to become the Townies’ all-time leading goal scorer upon her senior season in 2004.

“I’m excited. I’m ready for it and I think the girls are ready for it too,” Resendes said of E.P. heading back to Division I for the first time since 2005. “I told them this is D-I. It’s going to be a lot harder. The game is a lot quicker. The passing is quicker. It’s completely different from D-II. But they’re prepared. They know it’s going to take a lot of hard work. D-I is no joke. But this is where you want to be if you want to play in college.”

The Townies lost five of six starters off last year’s squad that reached the D-II semis and posted an 11-3-2 record, good for fourth place in the league table.

“We’re ready. We’re working on a lot different formations. I don’t really have a lot plays. Every play is different in a game. We do work on corner kicks, set pieces, but I want the girls to be ready for anything,” said Resendes. “We’re going to use a couple of formations, but I want to put pressure on our opponents. I want us to go forward.”

Basing their lineup off of the traditional 4-4-2 formation, senior returnee Hailee Manteiga plays at the top with freshman Alyssa Karalekas.

“They have the ability to really hit the ball and they also work well together,” Resendes said of the forwards, including Manteiga one of the Townies’ captains this fall.

East Providence’s other co-captain is senior Jordyn Brogan, the team’s leading returning goal scorer and leader of its midfield group. She’s joined their by junior Nyima Goncalves along with the sophomore duo of Ava Soares and Grace Gagne.

“I like all of them. I feel like they’re working well off each other. They all have speed and playmaking ability,” Resendes said of her midfielders.

Junior returning starter Eva Laroche quarterbacks the veteran defensive back field in central defense where she’s paired with another returnee, sophomore Ava Williams. Two more starters back in the fold are on the outside, sophomore Katherine Almeida at the right and junior McKayla Lopes at the left.

“I have a lot of faith in Eva. She’s the leader of the pack. She controls the defense, communicates well with the keeper. The entire defense is strong. I have a lot of confidence in those four. They’re our brick wall,” Resendes said of the back four.

They’ll front emerging sophomore keeper Kloey Iacovone, who takes over as the Townies’ starting netminder. Iacovone is coming off an exceptional competitive league season, allowing no goals for the East Providence Youth Soccer Under-17 team, also coached by Resendes, in 12 games over the last few months.

“Kloey is on fire. She’s been playing for me forever. She’s a rock back there. She sees the game, reads it,” Resendes said of Iacovone. “She’s like a spider monkey out there. She’s on the ground and back up in a split second. I think she’s going to have a great year.”

The rest of the EPHS varsity roster and those expected to contribute throughout the fall in some fashion include seniors Emily Ramsey, Gladys Barrera, Alexia Cortes and Claire Martins; juniors Amanda Lopes and Kassidy Martins; and sophomores Thalia Lima and Brennyn Alves. Freshman Ash Levesque is the back-up goalie.

Besides the head coach, another new/old face on the sideline also has deep program ties. Arianna Calouro is a 2017 EPHS grad and member that previous fall of the Townies’ 2016 D-III title winning squad.

“She’s great. She puts a lot of work in,” Resendes said of Calouro. “I’m kind of old and she’s kind of still a little young. I think we work well off of each other.”

One other thing that’s old, but that Resendes hopes will become new again is a tradition the Townies used to do when she was on varsity back in the early 2000s. After a win, upon their return to the high school, both home and away actually because EPHS of course used to play at Pierce Stadium, the Townies would “bang the bus” in celebration.

“I haven’t told the girls yet, but I want us to bang the bus again like we used to,” Resendes said earlier this week prior to the Townies’ first game. “We even did it when I was in middle school. After we won a game, we’d bang the side of the bus. It was a team thing, a bonding thing. I thought it was really cool. I want us to hopefully bang the bus a lot again.”

The Townies were set to begin their 2022 D-I regular season schedule at home Thursday night, Sept. 8, against South Kingstown at 6:30 then travel to Cranston West for a game against the host Falcons Monday afternoon, Sept. 12, at 4.

Without putting any unnecessary expectations on her group, Resendes said she’ll be pleased with the season if the Townies gave everything they had every minute of every game.

“My motto, what I tell the girls is to win we have to play as a team, really communicate, talk to each other,” Resendes added. “If we put 110 percent into each game, put our whole heart into it, we’ll be successful. If we don’t put our whole heart into it, it’s not going to happen.”