Baldwin rallies past Long Beach

The Nassau girls’ lacrosse playoffs won’t appear on the radar screen for quite some time, but last Friday’s Baldwin-Long Beach non-league matchup had all the ingredients of a game played in late May with the season on the line.

Kelsey Cohen broke a tie with 2:42 remaining and Allie Rodgers’ fourth goal of the night with seven seconds to go put the finishing touch on Baldwin’s hard-fought 10-8 victory before a spirited crowd at blustery Long Beach Middle School. Cohen and Nicole Gardianos had hat tricks and goalie Caroline Winters made 14 saves for the Lady Bruins (4-3), who won their third straight and sent the young Lady Marines (5-5) to their fifth defeat in six games.

“It was a pretty intense game,” Baldwin coach Nicole Lein said after a playoff-like celebration in front of the cage Winters defended in the second half. “It’s always a good rivalry,” she added. “We’re similar teams. We both play a zone defense and like to push the fast break.”

Lein and Long Beach coach Rachel Ray were college teammates at Adelphi were part of a championship team. In 2010, when each took over their respective programs, the Lady Marines beat the Lady Bruins. They didn’t meet last spring and now each coach has a win over the other.

“We’ve had positive spurts, but we haven’t put together a full game yet,” said Ray, who may have the youngest varsity team in the county with only one senior on a roster that goes 24-deep. “If we want to make the playoffs, we have to battle our way in. The next two games [Lynbrook and Division] are big.”

Patricia Murphy, Long Beach’s lone senior, and sophomores Liz Rourke and Melissa Rubin all found the net twice. Goaltender Elyse Stark made 10 saves.

“Both goalies had strong games,” Ray said.

Baldwin led for all but 26 seconds of the first half and enjoyed a three-goal cushion on three occasions. Cohen opened the scoring with an unassisted goal at the 22-second mark and converted a feed from Rodgers 26 seconds later for a quick 2-0 advantage. Gardianos made it 3-0 before Murphy got the hosts on the board at 8:38. Rodgers and Gardianos then sandwiched goals around a tally by Rourke, giving the Lady Bruins a 5-2 lead, but Long Beach got its transition game in gear late in the half and rallied to tie.

Molly Martin, who blazed from end to end on several rushes throughout the game, and Rubin scored with 19 and 4 seconds left in the half, respectively, and in a gust of wind it was 5-5 at intermission. Murphy gave Long Beach its first lead 2:53 into the second half, and the Lady Marines were up 8-7 with a little more than 14 minutes to go before Baldwin closed with three unanswered goals to win it.

“There were so many good things I saw tonight,” said Lein, who lauded the defensive efforts of Nicole Markowitz, Amanda Clemens, Casey Barbiero and Chelsea Banks. “Hopefully it’s a win that gets us moving toward the playoffs.”