Wantagh advances to title game

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Top-seeded Wantagh staved off a late Lynbrook scoring surge to win 11-8 in a Nassau Class C girls’ lacrosse semifinal at Adelphi on May 23.

The Lady Warriors led 10-5 midway through the second half when Lynbrook senior goalie Hope Germanakos made three successive saves that helped spark her teammates to score the next three goals. Wantagh had just won its sixth consecutive draw when Lynbrook’s senior attacker Molly Carter netted her fourth and final goal at 12:09, and freshman attacker Elizabeth Murphy and junior midfielder Sophia LoCicero both scored to narrow the lead to 10-8. 

But Wantagh’s senior midfielder Megan Gordon scored the game’s final goal on a free position play at 9:15, and the Lady Warriors managed to dominate time of possession during the closing minutes to advance to the next round.

Wantagh struck first to open the game and both teams traded goals until the Lady Warriors took a 5-3 lead with scores by senior midfielder Alexandra Murphy and Gordon. But Lynbrook replied with two consecutive goals within the final minute of the first half. Carter, Long Island’s top scorer with 172 points, scored with 53 seconds left on the clock, and Murphy tied the game at 5-5 with two seconds remaining. 

“Our team played the way it played all year, tight one-, two- or three-goal games,” Wantagh’s first-year head coach Greg Cody said. “At halftime when it was 5-5, we told the girls to relax, calm down, don’t panic, we’ve been in this environment before, and just play our game — we know you’re better than this. We knew Lynbrook was going to show up to play. We knew they are hard-nosed, tough kids.”

While No. 5 Lynbrook dominated draws in the first half, Wantagh scored five goals off the first six draws it won to start the second half, including two goals by junior middie Kayla Conway, who had five goals in the game, and one goal each by Gordon, senior attacker Taylor Carson and eighth-grade attacker Sabrina Caruso. 

“Kayla did very well on the draws in the second half,” Cody said. “She didn’t really win them in the first half, but in the second half when we needed her, she came out and did very well.” 

Gordon, who had 65 points this season, tacked on three assists to match her goals scored in the game, and Alexandra Murphy had a pair of goals and assists.

“Megan Gordon played her heart out for us the entire game; Ally Murphy the same thing,” Cody said. “We know what we’re getting from them.”

As the No. 1 seed going into the playoffs, Wantagh enjoyed a first-round bye and downed Plainedge 15-6 in a quarterfinals match before facing Lynbrook. The Lady Warriors will need to get through Cold Spring Harbor, who defeated North Shore 12-8 in the other semifinals, to have a chance at winning a second county title in three years.

“Cold Spring Harbor has an excellent goalie and attack girl and midfielders,” Cody said. “It’s going to be a tough fight.”