Wantagh captures first-ever county title

After a decade of falling just short, Wantagh High School’s girls’ lacrosse program finally tasted a championship last week.

The Lady Warriors captured their first Nassau County title on May 27 with a 9-6 win against top-seeded and previously unbeaten Manhasset, at Adelphi University. It was a long-awaited moment for a program founded 18 years ago that has endured many near-misses over the years, including defeats in the Class B finals in seven of the previous nine seasons.

“To never win before and be able to do it against such a great team is just indescribable,” Wantagh junior goalie Grace Beshlian said moments after the historic victory she helped key with a 16-save effort. “This means so much for the entire program and all the players who came before that just missed out on winning a county title.”

“We’ve been knocking on the door every single year and we finally knocked it down,” second-year coach Jaclyn Coyne said. “We got over the hump last year a little bit and now we pushed it a little more forward.”

The county championship moved Wantagh to the Long Island Class B finals back at Adelphi last Saturday night, where the Lady Warriors just missed out on reaching the state semifinals with an 11-10 loss to Suffolk County champion Eastport-South Manor. Wantagh (17-3) trailed by three and struck for two late goals by Taylor Carson and Nikki Sliwak before Eastport-South Manor managed to run out the clock after winning a crucial draw control.

A major reason Wantagh was positioned for a state title run was Beshlian, who in the county final kept Manhasset off the scoreboard for the game’s final 13:40 after a goal by Lindsey Ronbeck cut the margin to three. The UConn-bound junior keeper halted multiple Manhasset scoring chances late in the second half that could have swung the momentum, including stopping a free position shot by Kathy Hallet. The game fittingly ended with Beshlian stopping a Manhasset fast break attempt as the horn sounded.

“She’s just unbelievable,” said Coyne of her standout goalie, who also recorded eight saves in an 8-7 semifinal win against Garden City. “To put it away at the end there with that last save showed how she played the whole game.”

A strong defense in front of Beshlian, led by Shea Weber, Michele Smith, Carly Cullen and Emily Bauer, helped hold Manhasset to its lowest offensive output of the season. The Lady Indians, who defeated Wantagh 12-10 in the regular season and 15-8 in last year’s Class B finals, came into the county title game having scored in double digits in all but one of their 18 wins.

“It was a great defensive effort,” said Coyne. “Everyone stepped up.”

Wantagh clung to a 5-4 lead late in the first half before junior Courtney Gendels struck for three straight goals for a four-goal halftime cushion. The Lady Warriors had six different goal-scorers, led by Gendels’s hat trick, two from junior attacker Madison Conway and single tallies by Kaitlyn Cerasi, Megan Gordon, Carson and Sliwak.

Wantagh jumped out to an 8-4 halftime lead in large part by winning the majority of the draw controls. Sophomore midfielder Allie Murphy also came up with some huge ground balls to help Wantagh control time of possession.

“Allie Murphy is all over the place on the ground balls,” Coyne said. “She’s our scrappiest, and she can pick it up wherever the ball is.”

Wantagh kept up the momentum from the Nassau title for much of the first half in the Long Island championship, and led 6-4 until Eastport-South Manor struck for two late goals, including one just before the halftime horn as part of a 4-0 run. Coyne said there was heartbreak in not being able to take another step in Wantagh’s progression as an elite program, but she hopes her players can reflect back on what was a groundbreaking 2015 season.

“We have so much to be proud of,” she said. “We accomplished history.”