Cold Spring Harbor girls dominate second half to win Long Island Class D championship
Cold Spring Harbor midfield Ava Tighe looks to move past two Center Moriches defenders in the Long Island Class D finals, Sunday, June 5, 2022 at Stony Brook Credit: George A Faella
Good luck getting in Cold Spring Harbor’s way.
Just when it looked like they would be tested, Ava Tighe took over and helped the Seahawks explode for twelve unanswered goals in the second half.
Cold Spring Harbor rode the Florida commit in its 18-3 victory over Center Moriches (11-7) to capture its second straight Class D girls lacrosse Long Island championship Sunday evening at Stony Brook University.
The Seahawks led 6-3 at halftime but seemed to be struggling to find the back of the net, as Caitlin Noack made four of her seven saves in the first half.
“We came out a little sloppy, it might’ve been the LIC jitters,” Tighe said. “Once we came into halftime, we knew we had to clean it up.”
“We were lucky enough to be winning draws and getting second opportunities, but we needed to turn it on,” coach Danielle Castellane added. “It’s got to click on all cylinders. When our offense was struggling, it was nice to have the defense support them.”
Tighe scored one goal in the first half but started finding the back of the net much easier in the second. She scored each of the first five goals in the half to extend the Seahawks’ lead to 11-3 with 16:53 remaining.
“I think the sloppiness in the first half just turned on that switch in my mind,” said Tighe, who finished with six goals. “My mindset going into the second half was that we needed to get rolling. We just need to do it, lets go.”
Then Amelia Bentley and Kelly Callaghan alternated scoring, and each finished with a hat trick. Maggie Spehr, who scored two goals in the first half, completed her hat trick off an assist by Hannah Van Son with 7:15 remaining.
“We just knew we wanted our destination to be at states and we didn’t want to end our season now,” Spehr said. “We turned it around and we got ourselves there.”
Franny Donohue, Giana Marino and Camden Carswell each added a goal to cap off the Seahawk’s dominant second half.
Cold Spring Harbor (10-8) will look to continue its dominance against Bronxville of Section I in the state semifinals at SUNY Cortland on Friday at 3 p.m.
“This is what we’ve talked about since March 14,” Castellane said. “Let’s get back on the bus.”
