Friends Academy wins LI Class C title
Babylon's Miranda Richards and Friends Academy's Stephanie Gherlone hustle to the ball in the Long Island Class C field hockey championship. (Nov. 12, 2011) Credit: Kathleen Malone-Van Dyke
Erica Sklar was giddy – well, even more so than usual. Savannah Febesh couldn’t fight the tears. Jalisa Clark couldn’t hold a smile long enough for the team photo before blurting, "We’re going to states!"
Friends Academy beat Babylon, 5-1, Saturday to capture the Class C field hockey Long Island championship, accomplishing something, Clark said, they had "been trying to do forever."
Not quite forever. The Quakers last made the state tournament in 2006. But, considering even the seniors on this roster were in middle school back then, the hyperbole is understandable.
Sklar scored three goals and Febesh had two goals and two assists to lead Friends Academy (10-6). Charlotte Gelfand made 11 saves in the win.
Sklar and Febesh, both among Nassau’s leading scorers, were unstoppable in the circle. Two of Skalr’s goals were assisted by Febesh, including one on a nifty skip pass setting up the score that created the final margin with 10:25 remaining.
"In practice we work a lot together; we do some give-and-gos," Sklar, the forward, said of Febesh, the midfielder. "But she’s so good, she makes it a lot easier for me."
Erin Gluck controlled the action in the midfield and Clark led a defense that stymied the Panthers. Both players received all-tournament honors.
Michelle Mangini scored on a fast break off a cross-field pass from Maggie Griffo to get Babylon on the board with 11:59 remaining, and Dottie Barker had 14 saves.
"Even though we didn’t win, we got so much farther than we thought we could," Panthers coach Catherine York said. Babylon hadn’t reached the postseason since 1997. "Our hope was just to get into the playoffs and we made it to the Long Island Championship."
The Quakers have won seven straight Nassau titles, but Sklar was a sixth-grade ball girl for the last Friends Academy team to triumph in the Long Island final.
"I went upstate with the team and I sat on the sideline," Sklar said. "I was excited to just be there. Now I can’t imagine what it’ll be like when I’m actually on the field playing."
To think, as recently as six weeks ago, it wasn’t a certainty that the Quakers could even finish with a decent record, let alone hoist two championship plaques in a week.
"To come from 0-5 at the start of the year to where we are now, it’s unbelievable," said Febesh, whose second goal made it 3-0 with 25:40 remaining. "We thought last year was our chance at states and this would be a rebuilding year… We built it up really quickly, I guess."
