Maria Zangardi

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Growing up in Pittston area, Maria has been a local athlete from grade school through college. She was a three-sport athlete at the former Seton Catholic High School in Pittston, playing tennis basketball and softball. Having varsity lettered in all three sports, she went on to receive all conference honors in all three including trips in all three sports to District playoffs. During her career at Seton Catholic, she was part of a basketball team that won two conference and district titles and went to their first ever conference title for the school as well as their first ever district title. She graduated from Seton Catholic as co-valedictorian in 2000. After graduating from Seton Catholic, she continued her athletic career at King’s College on a Presidential Scholarship for academics. During her career in softball, Maria was part of a Monarch team that won 4 straight MAC Conference Titles and had 4 straight berths in NCAA playoffs. During her time at King’s they were ranked several times as a top 25 NCAA Division III team. In 2004, the team set the school softball record for victories at 39. Throughout her career at King’s from 2001-2004, Zangardi received academic and athletic honors. She was a three-time All-Freedom Conference first-team selection, and a three-time East Regional All-American. Zangardi was named the 2004 Middle Atlantic Corporation Spring Sport Scholar-Athlete for the Year and was a two-time College Sports Information Director’s of American (CoSIDA) District 2 All-American selection. In 2004, Zangardi made history being the first Lady Monarch to earn National All-American honors in softball when she was named to the National Fastpitch Coaches Association Division III All-American squad as a second team selection. That same year she was also honored by CoSIDA again as one of only 11 individuals throughout the nation to be named to the 2004 CoSIDA Academic All-American Team. Additionally, Zangardi was named Freedom Conference “Player of the Week” several times throughout her career and was named to the 2004 NCAA Mid-Atlantic Regional Championships All-Tournament team. During that 2004 season, she ranked in the top 5 of the Freedom Conference in virtually every offensive category. Zangardi finished that year with a .403 (71-176) batting average with eight homeruns, 18 doubles, 6 triples, 43 RBIs, 125 total bases, and a .710 slugging percentage. Also she scored 41 runs and posted a .429 in on-base average. Over the course of her career, Zangardi batted .397 with 16 homeruns, 44 doubles, 16 triples, 150 RBIs, 137 runs scored and a .623 slugging percentage. She holds the King’s College career records with 217 bases and a .986 fielding percentage, making just 14 errors in 1,024 chances. She stands second all-time at King’s with 444 doubles and 16 triples. In 2005, she was awarded the Joe Hoinski Memorial Award by the Killer Bees Athletic Club. Recently, in 2003, Maria was named to the Middle Atlantic Conference All-Century Team for softball, spanning the years from 1992 to 2012. In the classroom, Maria finished her college career receiving ad double major in Mass Communications and Spanish and was awarded the Father Murgas Memorial Award for Communications and the Joanne T. Moran Foreign Language Award for having the highest cumulative GPA in both majors. After King’s College, Maria obtained her master’s degree from the University of Scranton in Counseling. She received her Professional in Human Resources certification in 2008 and is an active member of the Society for Human Resource Management. Since May of 2006, she has worked for Mohegan Sun Pocono and currently serves as the Director of Human Resources and Evnionmental Services. Throughout almost 9 years at Mohegan Sun, Maria has been part of four major expansion projects and takes pride in being a part of the fun, friendly and warm culture at Mohegan Sun Pocono. Most recently Maria has been actively involved in the local community as an Advisory Council Member for Junior Leadership Wilkes-Barre, having served as a Project Advisor to several 5k races to benefit the Catherine McAuley Center, St. Vincent DePaul Kitchen and Blue Chip Farm Animal Rescue. She also serves as an advisory member for the Career Technology Center for Lackawanna County, Board Member for the Northeastern Pennsylvania Diversity Education Consortium and an Advisory Board member for the McCAnn School of Business, Wilkes-Barre Campus. In Novmember of 2013, she joined the cause to support Ryan’s Run 4 to benefit Allied Services and completed the 26.1 mile NYC marathon. Most importantly, Maria gets to spend a lot of time with family. Her parents, Alfonso and Barbara Zangardi, reside in Pittston Township; they are actively involved in volunteering at St. Joseph Marello Parish. Her brother Alfonso and his wife Jennifer work in internal medicine in the local area and have three children – Dominick, Lorenzo and Rita – and reside in the Dallas area. Maria’s youngest brother, Gennaro teaches at Pittston Area High School in Social Studies and Special Education. He has been active in the district coaching in several different sports including football and baseball.