12 SWR seniors, coach Vlahakis go out in style

They couldn't stop winning and wouldn't stop fighting.

The 2010 Shoreham-Wading River girls lacrosse team's slogan was stamped on the white T-shirts they wore every game this season - "Can't stop. Won't stop."

Until a fourth straight state Class C title was theirs, Jen DeVito couldn't stop scoring (she led the team with 70 goals) and Kait Brosco wouldn't stop being a playmaker (she led the team with 104 points). Chelsey Newman couldn't stop winning draws (she won them at a 58.6 percent clip) and Erin McMullan wouldn't stop making saves (she stopped 173 shots). Samantha Villafranca couldn't stop defending and Bob Vlahakis wouldn't stop coaching.

That'll all change next year, when all five girls - and seven others - will be in college and Vlahakis will be immersed in retirement. But what a ride they had in 2010.

Still the only Suffolk girls lacrosse team to ever win a state title, Shoreham-Wading River (19-2) persevered through a lopsided loss to Garden City and a defeat to Hauppauge that snapped a 57-game winning streak against Suffolk opponents, to again reach the pinnacle of its class.

"All of us wanted it," Brosco said after the Wildcats' 10-9 win over Carthage in the state final last Saturday at SUNY Cortland. "Our dedication to this, to each other, to our hard work, it means the world to us. We left everything on the field."

In the Suffolk final, a 15-10 win over Bayport-Blue Point, and the two state tournament games, DeVito, Brosco and Newman scored 32 of the team's 39 goals.

SEE PHOTOSShoreham-Wading River girls lacrosse: State champs

"I think we've just been playing together for a really long time," DeVito said of the trio's relationship. "We always know where each other is on the field."

But when Manhasset held them relatively in check in the Wildcats' 11-9 victory in the Long Island Class C final (Shoreham-Wading River's fifth straight L.I. title), another senior, Megan Gersbeck, was there to pick up the slack with three goals and one assist.

"They're just a wonderful group," Vlahakis said of his seniors. "They expect to win and they refuse not to win."

They also never quit. Corinne Wiederkehr was expected to be a key contributor on offense but was lost for the season after tearing her ACL playing basketball. The ultimate story of perseverance was Kait Suarez, who battled Hodgkin's lymphoma last year and returned to score her first career goal on April 9.

SEE PHOTOSHigh school sports -- June

Wiederkehr and Suarez will be part of next season's team as it goes for a fifth straight state title. But the 12 seniors' illustrious careers have come to an end.

"This is the last time I'll be playing with these girls - except for Erin," DeVito said after the state final (she and McMullan will be teammates at Yale). "It hasn't really sunk in."

In their four high school seasons, Shoreham-Wading River's senior class went 78-7, won four state titles and never lost to another Class C team.

Said Brosco: "I couldn't see how it would end any other way than us winning."

Can't stop. Won't stop.