York College graduate goalie Bella Garabo has been named the IWLCA Division III Goalie of the Year as announced by the organization on Wednesday.
Garabo is now a two-time national Goalie of the Year after earning the honor last spring.
Garabo closes out her Spartan career with a litany of post season awards. In addition to being a two-time national goalie of the year, Garabo was a two-time IWLCA All-American, a three-time MAC All-Commonwealth pick, a two-time MAC Commonwealth Goalie of the Year and a three-time IWLCA All-Metro honoree.
Garabo finished the 2024 campaign with a record of 14-7 as she played in and started all 21 games for the Green and White. She played 1,048:17 in net as she registered an 8.53 goals against average with a .513 save percentage with 157 stops for the year. She faced 425 shots during the course of the campaign.
"I am incredibly proud of Bella for repeating as a first-team All-American and the D3 goalie of the year," said head coach Jen Muston. "That is incredibly hard to do, and it puts her in a select category of the most elite Division III players who have received first-team and positional player of the year multiple times in their career. After performing at such a high level in 2023, she needed to match that level of performance and competitive standard in 2024 in order to have the chance of being recognized for a second time; and she did just that. It is an honor to be recognized by the IWLCA for this award and I couldn't be happier for her. Her hard work has paid off and we are so lucky to have her as a York Spartan."
For her Spartan career, Garabo played in 73 games with 56 starts. She played 3,179:34 in net and posted a goals against average of 7.51. She made 446 career saves, good for a career save percentage of .528. Garabo owns a career record of 42-15 in the Green and White as she also had 130 ground balls and 31 caused turnovers.
Garabo's grad year was full of success against a schedule that was one of the toughest in the country and number one in the MAC Commonwealth. She finished the year ranked eighth nationally in save percentage and 20th in goals against average.
Garabo and the Spartans faced seven ranked teams in the non-conference with the two other non-conference opponents receiving votes when they played York. She opened the season with five double digit save efforts in the Spartans 10 non-conference regular season games including a career-high 18 in the March 30 game at #4 Salisbury. Overall, Garabo had seven double digit save efforts for the year including 10 against #2 Wesleyan in the second round of the NCAA Tournament.
Garabo's name is all over the Spartan record books. Her 446 saves are second on the all-time list as is her .528 career save percentage. She is fifth in goals against average with 7.51. Her 42 wins are second all-time, just two short of Charlotte Wright's school record of 44.
Garabo is third Spartan to earn an IWLCA national positional player of the year award joining current assistant coach Nicky Clauter (2019) and Karlie Dougherty (2015) who both earned IWLCA Defender of the Year honors while playing for York. Garbo is the first two-time winner for York.
This story originally appeared on ycpspartans.com.
