Sunday, April 27, 2025
Five days after completing a rare high school sports trifecta with back-to-back-to-back Nassau County championships in lacrosse, soccer and basketball over a nine-month span, Wantagh seniors Juliana Cerasi and Riley Forthofer helped lead the girls’ hoops program to a historic accomplishment.
The Warriors outscored Mount Sinai in all four quarters Saturday night at Farmingdale State College on the way to a convincing 54-30 victory in the Long Island Class A title game. Sophomore Kayla Mannix scored 14 of her game-high 18 points in the second half, freshman Isabelle Ferraro added 13 and Cerasi chipped in 8 as Wantagh claimed its first-ever L.I. championship.
“It’s a really special group of girls who have great chemistry and know what it takes to win,” longtime head coach Stan Bujacich said. “They love each other and come to work every day. Tonight’s game plan was to play defense, move the ball to the open spots and rebound, rebound, rebound.”
Cerasi’s basket late in the first quarter gave the Warriors a 9-7 lead and they never looked back. Bujacich stressed her strong defensive effort against Mount Sinai junior Mia Betancourt, who was held to half of her scoring average finishing with a team-leading 10 points.
“Juliana’s one of the best defensive players in the county and she showed it again tonight,” Bujacich said.
Wantagh, which upset top-seeded Lynbrook March 10 in the Nassau Class A final on Forthofer’s layup with 7.7 seconds remaining, improved to 22-2 and heads to Hudson Valley Community College for the state Final Four where it’ll meet Albany Academy in the semifinals Friday at 1:30 p.m.
“We weren’t able to win our Long Island games in lacrosse and soccer, so we really didn’t want to go 0-3,” Forthofer said. “We kept saying ‘third time’s a charm’ all week and we did it. It’s insane.”
The Warriors had to navigate around first-half foul trouble for Mannix, who picked up her third personal 3:33 into the second quarter and her team clinging to a 15-11 lead. Then Ferraro nailed her second of four 3’s in the game and sophomore Ella Perfetti provided some quality minutes off the bench as Wantagh not only held steady but upped its advantage to 22-13 by halftime.
“We were in a good place but we weren’t taking anything for granted,” Cerasi said. “Coach Stan is so focused on the game and always has us prepared for our opponent. We felt good the whole time. We just had to keep pushing.”
Ferraro dialed long distance twice in the third quarter and scored seven points while Mannix returned to add five as the Warriors inched closer to the finish line with a 36-24 lead through three quarters.
Freshman Makayla McNeil opened the fourth with a trey and the rest was history. Forthofer had 6 points and junior Sabrina Asadurian added 4.
“We have such great chemistry and this feels great because we’ve been working towards it for so long,” Ferraro said.
Wantagh’s girls’ lacrosse team was the No. 2 seed last spring when it won the Nassau Class C title 11-10 over Manhasset. Its soccer team was seeded third and edged North Shore in the Class A county final, 1-0, on a goal by Mannix. And seeded No. 2 in basketball, it avenged a pair of regular-season defeats to Lynbrook to win its first county title in almost 20 years.
“In all three county championship games we were the underdog and that’s the best part,” Cerasi said.
