Tarzian leads GC to 7th straight B title

It's that time of the year again. Gas up the buses, make the travel arrangements. Oh, and alert the folks up north: They're coming back.

The Garden City girls lacrosse team earned another trip upstate, securing a seventh straight Long Island Class B title Saturday with a 13-7 win over Hauppauge at Hofstra. The Trojans will trek to Cortland in search of a sixth straight state title.

"It gets better every time," Alexandra Bruno said with a chuckle. She has made that line her postgame catchphrase in describing each step Garden City has taken in the playoffs -- following in their own footprints, of course.

Caroline Tarzian had four goals and four assists, and Bruno had three goals and two assists to lead the Trojans (19-0). Catherine McTiernan and Jenna Fuchs each had two goals and Kelly Weis made six saves.

That long bus ride to the state tournament the Trojans have grown so accustomed to?

"It's everything you want," said Barbara Sullivan, who will make her third trip north this scholastic year. She led the soccer and basketball teams to L.I. titles, as well. "You get to spend time with your best friends and you're goofing around in the hotel. On the bus, we're watching movies, the music is going -- everything from rap to country -- and we're dancing. It's a whole lot of fun."

The Long Island final was anything but for Garden City early on. Lauren Descalzo scored twice to give Hauppauge a 2-0 lead less than five minutes in. Mixed in were several Trojans turnovers and sloppy play unbecoming a team ranked second in the nation.

Bruno said they weren't as focused as they should have been to start. "We've been in this game a bunch of times; it's my fourth," Sullivan, a senior, said. "I think sometimes you need a wake-up call. Hauppauge definitely gave us that."

Bruno got the Trojans on the board with a free-position goal and Tarzian tied it at 2 with 12:00 left in the first half. After that, Garden City went on a 7-0 run to seize control.

"We really just needed one goal to get us started," Bruno said. "We got settled in and started playing our game."

They went up 13-5 on Fuchs' goal with 1:12 left. Hauppauge's Jennifer Porretto and Taylor Ranftle scored in the final 23 seconds to create the final margin.

Descalzo, Porretto and Ranftle each had two goals and an assist, and Kasey Kephart made 10 saves for the Eagles (19-1), who had won their first Suffolk title Thursday.

"I had a lot of girls put their heart on the field," Hauppauge coach Abby Zeltmann said. "I don't care what the score says, at the end of the day, we're champions."

And for the Trojans, it's another march into what they believe is becoming unfriendly territory. "Some of those teams upstate really don't like us and we definitely have an 'X' on our back," Weis said. "When you win a lot, it happens. Everyone is gunning for us, but that's the position you want to be in."