Shoreham-Wading River wins girls Class C lax title

CORTLAND, N.Y. - Kait Brosco looked down at the shiny state championship medallion hanging from her neck, turned to a teammate and said, "I've got four of these."

She didn't say it in a conceited fashion. She was more in disbelief of what she and Shoreham-Wading River's 10 other seniors have accomplished in their high school careers.

Last night at SUNY Cortland, the most successful girls lacrosse program in Suffolk County sent those girls off to college in style by winning its fourth straight state Class C title with a 10-9 win over Carthage.

Shoreham, which remains the only Suffolk team in any classification to win a girls lacrosse state title, completed Long Island's second straight sweep of the event. Farmingdale, which won Class A, and Garden City, which took Class B, also won last season.

"Each year we come in with a bigger bulls-eye, just knowing that each time you step on the field, teams are coming at us," Brosco said. "If we lose, it's a bigger loss and if it's a win, it's a bigger win. We left everything on the field, and we won.

"This is the best one yet."

And as she uttered the last sentence, she got choked up with tears of joy.

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Brosco and the other bedrock of the Wildcat squad, Jen DeVito, each scored three goals. Chelsey Newman scored twice, including a score off a feed from Megan Gersbeck with 2:56 remaining to give SWR a 10-8 lead.

"It's surreal right now," said DeVito, who was named tournament MVP (Brosco won it last year). "I still don't believe it. It's crazy, four times, I really can't believe it."

The largest lead for Shoreham was three. That came after Newman's free position goal made it 9-6 SWR with 16:22 to play. Carthage (19-4) closed it to one on back-to-back goals by Katherine DeRonda and Amy Tiernan, and again on a Tiernan goal with 1:18 left, but couldn't get the equalizer.

The Comets had possession with under a minute left, but SWR (19-2) forced a turnover.

SEE PHOTOSShoreham-Wading River 10, Carthage 9

"We just wanted it so bad and it felt like it was falling out of our fingers at the last minute," DeVito said, "and we just really didn't want to let that happen at all."

Shoreham-Wading River coach Bob Vlahakis had an eventful postgame. After doing a celebratory dance for his team on the 50-yard line, he gathered his troops together to let them know that yesterday was his final game coaching.

"We've won every different way that we can, so that was pretty neat," Vlahakis said. "I just told the team that's it for me."

That's also it for an extremely talented senior class that includes the All Americans Brosco and DeVito, Newman, goalie Erin McMullan, who made eight saves, and standout defender Samantha Villafranca, among others.

"It's a wonderful group," said Vlahakis before adding that part of the reason he is choosing to retire is because the senior class is the last group he taught in school. "We keep having waves like that of kids.

"Ten and 20 years they're going to look back at this and say 'what an amazing feat,' " he continued. "What they just did is never happening in their lives again, and it hasn't happened in anybody's life who played [girls] lacrosse in Suffolk County the last 20 years."