Dom Farrello is one of the most valuable players on Cabrini College’s men’s basketball team. He has played for all four years leaving a mark on the younger players on the team. With Farrello graduating in May, he will be leaving the team with big shoes to fill.
Farrello started playing basketball when he was 10 years old but it was not his first love.
The sport that was his first passion was baseball. He played baseball up until he graduated from William Tennent High School in Warminster, Pa.
“Dom is a really good player in baseball as well as basketball. I think he was almost recruited in DII in other schools,” Saleem Brown, assistant basketball coach, said.
Besides Cabrini College being a school that is close to his home, there are other reasons why he decided to come to Cabrini. During his last home game ever in high school, an assistant coach came to watch Farrello play, eventually recruiting him to play basketball at Cabrini College.
“Even though I was really excited to start my freshman year at Cabrini, I was nervous about playing on the basketball team,” Farrello said. “I thought everyone was a lot better than me and older than me.”
“Coming in as a freshman he didn’t get much playing time but he’s been a very very hard worker,” Brown said. “He went from playing no minutes his freshman year, to probably playing the whole game.”
As every basketball season went on, Farrello has developed as a player, a leader and a role model for younger players to look up to.
After getting through freshman year, sophomore year was when everything picked up for Farrello. This was the year he started to shine.
His ability improved so much since the beginning of freshman year that he was nominated to be captain of the team.
“We based him being captain during his sophomore year because of his work ethic. We wanted the rest of the guys to look at him and think, okay, this is what it takes to be a good player. We wanted the other players to follow what he does,” Brown said.
The other players on the team completely agreed with this decision. No one felt jealous that a sophomore was going to be captain of the team over some seniors because everyone knew he earned it.
“We wanted Dom to be our captain because of his hard work that he put in during the off season,” Greg Zabel, junior secondary education major, said. “We knew he could be a leader and lead the rest of the team by example. He always seems to be doing the right thing on and off the court.”
Farrello thought that the first game sophomore year was the best game that the team played together. It was against the Merchant Marine Academy. The game was at the Palestra, which is located on the campus of the University of Pennsylvania. It is the home of the Big Five and is known for its incredible basketball history. Farrello thought it was an honor to play there.
“I thought it was the best game we played because it was a new year, with new people and a new head coach. There were no expectations and we ended up playing our best,” Farrello said.
During Farrello’s junior year the team played a home game versus Neumann University, and it will be a moment he will never forget. Besides the team playing an all around good game, Farrello made his first dunk of his basketball career.
“I felt so accomplished as a player because that has never happened before,” Farrello said.
“I think when we play our rival schools like Eastern University, Gwynedd-Mercy College and Neumann University, that’s when the best comes out in him,” Brown said.
When Farrello plays his best, it’s not so much about the scoring aspect of it, but more so his defense. When the team played Gwynedd-Mercy College twice, he went after their best player the whole time. Scoring isn’t always something that matters to him, it’s about defending the team so the opposing team will not have the opportunity to score.
Farrello’s relentlessness led the team to the playoffs and eventually to win the CSAC championship game in 2010.
“That was my most memorable moment throughout my basketball career at Cabrini. I wanted it so bad and so did the team,” Farello said.
