Tarzian helps lead Garden City to 21st straight victory

Hard to believe an undefeated girls lacrosse team could have a bad habit. But Caroline Tarzian readily acknowledges Garden City's.

"We tend to sit on our leads," she said. "We generally come out strong and then let them back in it. It's a bad habit."

It didn't come back to bite the Trojans Tuesday, as they won their Long Island-high 21st straight game with a 15-11 decision at home over Wantagh.

But with the regular season now concluded, Garden City coach Diane Chapman warned about allowing teams back into games during the playoffs.

"We can't just sit on leads because that's how you lose," she said. "From now on, one loss and you're done."

The Trojans (15-0, 8-0 Conference I) looked as if they were going to breeze to an easy win when Barbara Sullivan made it 7-1 on an assist from Alex Bruno at 12:49. But Wantagh (10-4, 6-2) closed the half on a 5-2 run, including Sabrina Mattera's tally with 7.1 seconds left. It would have been a 5-3 run without Kelly Weis' sprawling save across the crease at the 3:08 mark.

"I don't know how I got in front of that one," said Weis, who finished with 11 saves.

SEE PHOTOSGarden City 15, Wantagh 11

Wantagh's unusual defense seemed to befuddle Garden City at the beginning of the second half. Whenever a Trojan would dodge and drive to the net, the Wantagh coaches would yell "In!" and the Warriors would condense their defense in front of goalie Kelly Keenan (12 saves).

"They were relentless and they got after it," Chapman said of the Wantagh defense.

In the interim, Wantagh closed its deficit to two on Kaleigh Craig's bounce shot from 5 meters.

Tarzian, who finished with three goals and a season-high five assists, stopped the comeback with a free-position goal followed by an unassisted tally that made it 11-7 Garden City with 15:33 to play.

SEE PHOTOSHigh school sports -- May

The latter was set up by Mikaela Rix's nice play along the sideline that saved a potential turnover.

Jackie Sileo (one goal, four assists) needled a pass to Colleen Lovett to make it a three-goal deficit for Wantagh.

But Garden City converted draw controls into three straight goals and four of the next five. Capping the run was Shannon Mangini's third goal, a free position, to match the largest lead of the game at 15-9.

The Garden City players said they were upset that they let Wantagh back in the game, but they took solace in completing the program's first undefeated regular season in four years.

Now they'd like to cap the season with a fifth straight state title.

"We know that we have to close out games in the playoffs," Weis said. "We've been lucky in the fact that we're getting out to these big leads."

That's a habit worth keeping.