Scicutella helps Massapequa recapture Class A title
There's nothing wrong with Massapequa, coach Barbara Lowell said. Forget about those first few games, Kelsey O'Brien begged. The team will be just fine, Katie Cooney insisted.
They were optimists then, trying to pull themselves out of a 1-3 ditch to start the season. Last night at Adelphi, Nicole Scicutella made them prophets.
The midfielder scored with 6:46 remaining in overtime and lifted No. 1 Massapequa over New Hyde Park, 1-0, as the Chiefs captured their second straight Nassau Class A field hockey championship.
"I hit that ball so hard," said Scicutella, shivering after the game. The frigid conditions most certainly, but perhaps the magnitude of her goal accounted for some of those chills. "I put everything I had into it."
She took a pass from Cooney about 10 yards to the right of the cage and fired, but the ball deflected off goalie Priscila Paulose's pads. Opportunity knocked twice, though, as the ball kicked right back to Scicutella, who reset and blasted it into the far post. Jackie Harrison made three saves in the shutout.
"I can't explain how big that goal was," said Cooney, who hugged the championship plaque. O'Brien, a fellow captain, finally was able to get it from her when the team posed for photographs. "New Hyde Park is tough and we played evenly, until that goal."
The third-seeded Gladiators (11-5), who moved up from Class B, defeated Massapequa in the season opener. But the Chiefs avenged that loss later in the year, when they were on a tear. What slow start? They're 12-4 now.
"We have a young team," Lowell said. "We graduated 11 last year and the new kids needed to jell. It took a little time but . . . " She paused and raised her arms. "We're here!"
And there, they boogied. In keeping with the Chiefs' year-old tradition, Lowell broke out the celebratory Running Man dance. This time, though, the players returned the favor, forming a "Soul Train"-style dance circle. One at a time, beginning with Nicolette Amodeo, they jumped in to bust a move. They got down with their victorious selves.
