Long Beach outlasts Wantagh

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Wantagh did its best to slow down visiting Long Beach’s high-octane offense in last Saturday’s Nassau Conference B-I boys’ lacrosse matchup and rallied from behind five times but never got over the top.

Long Beach senior goaltender Brian Manning made 20 saves, including a handful of spectacular stops, and the Marines went ahead for good when sophomore Sam Brown set up junior Austin Gibbons’ goal with 4:03 remaining. Brown also assisted on senior Matt Varian’s insurance tally 23 seconds later.

“We were looking forward to this game for a while and it was intense,” said Varian, who scored four of his five goals in the second half and added one assist. “We knew it was for playoff positioning,” he added. “It was back and forth and Manning saved us a bunch of times. He’s been great all season.”

The Marines (10-2 overall, 4-1 in B-I) upped their winning streak and double-digit goal streak to six games. Brown had three goals and three assists, junior Tom Nicpon scored twice, and senior Chris Parler had three assists.

“I thought Wantagh did a tremendous job with the zone and keeping the ball away from us at times,” Long Beach coach Jim Kaspar said. “We’ve got some really strong players on offense and we were able to come up with two big goals late.”

Wantagh (6-5, 2-3) got a hat trick and one assist from junior Bruno Surace, two goals apiece from junior Dylan Beckwith and sophomore Casey Murphy, and 15 saves from junior goalie Bobby Casey. “We kept battling, but we couldn’t get three goals in a row,” Warriors coach John Cuiffo said. “I was proud of the way the kids fought back. We’re a pretty young team and Long Beach is very athletic and explosive. When it was 9-9, the game was there for the taking.”

The teams traded goals in a first quarter that ended knotted at two goals apiece. Nicpon and Brown scored for Long Beach, and Beckwith and Surace answered for Wantagh. After the Marines opened a 5-2 lead late in the first half on second-quarter goals by Varian, Brown and Nicpon, the Warriors got within one by halftime thanks to goals by Surace and Beckwith.

“They made it difficult for us to do anything in transition,” Kaspar said. “That made it tough for us to pull away. They kept it close the whole game.”

After Brown opened the scoring in the second half, the hosts pulled even on goals by Surace and Murphy. Varian then scored three times in a span of 90 seconds, converting feeds from Brown, Parler and senior Tom Sculley, and Long Beach took a 9-7 lead into the fourth.

The Marines prevailed despite allowing Wantagh to draw even again on fourth-quarter goals by junior Ryan DeVito and Murphy.

“There are probably seven or eight teams capable of winning it all,” Cuiffo said of the county title. “The difference could be one bounce here or one bounce there.”