Wantagh girls lacrosse prepared for tough playoff competition
Madison Taylor #4 of Wantagh, center, gets pressured by South Side duo Annie Madden #15, left, and Emma Madden #42 during a Nassau County Conference I girls lacrosse game at Wantagh High School on Thursday, April 28, 2022. Credit: James Escher
The Wantagh girls lacrosse team has made the Nassau Class C final in each of the last three seasons. But the team is still in search of its first county title since 2017.
And although Wantagh enters this season's playoffs as the top seed, if this is the team’s year to take home the crown, it certainly won’t come easy. Many of the top programs in the county play in Class C this spring.
“It’s a gauntlet,” coach Robyn Rooney said. “There are no easy games, no easy opponents. Every game is going to be a tough game and we just have to do our best to take it game by game.”
The Nassau Class C bracket includes Conference I teams such as Manhasset, North Shore, South Side and Plainedge. Seaford, Lynbrook and Bethpage – three tough programs that had success in Conference II – along with other opponents won’t make any contest easy throughout the postseason.
“It’s really crazy, honestly,” said senior midfielder Madison Taylor, who had 60 goals and 32 assists in the regular season. “But it makes us want to work even harder. It’s not going to be an easy path to go through to win, but if we can, it just makes it even better.”
This is Taylor’s final chance to win a county championship to cap off her dominant varsity tenure. Taylor, committed to play at Northwestern, has been a key member on teams that lost the final and wants to end her senior season differently.
“Our quote this year is ‘unfinished business,’” Taylor said. “Especially with this being my last year, that’s all I really wanted – to come out with a win at the end. I think that’s what we all want especially after falling just short so many times at the end. We want to win it this year and we know we can.”
Madison Alaimo (55 goals, 34 assists) and Eva Ingrilli (35 goals, 33 assists) also have plenty of playoff experience and have been key pieces to Wantagh’s success this season.
Wantagh won the Conference I regular-season championship with a 10-1 conference record. Wantagh went 13-2 overall with a challenging non-conference schedule and its only Nassau I loss came in an 8-7 contest against Garden City, which is playing in the Class B playoffs.
And if Wantagh does win a county title, its reward is one of the toughest teams in Suffolk in the Long Island Class C championship. Suffolk Class C also features some of the strongest teams in its county, including Bayport-Blue Point, Sayville and Shoreham-Wading River.
Wantagh has never won a state title in program history. This team hopes to be the first.
“Our whole thing is to leave a legacy and asking, ‘What are you going to leave behind at this school?’” Rooney said. “None of these kids have won a county championship and they’ve all played in one, so they don’t want that feeling of our seniors leaving the field crying anymore. They are done with it.”
Milestone Tracker
Payton Tini (Locust Valley) scored her 100th varsity goal Wednesday … Isabella Burke (Center Moriches) recorded her 100th varsity point Wednesday … West Babylon’s Lacey Downey (117), Half Hollow Hills’ Alyssa Studdert (101), Riverhead’s Ava Lily Sumwalt (100) and Division’s Juliana Stanley (100) each finished the regular season with at least 100 points.
