Massapequa wins Long Island Class A girls lacrosse title on Caitlyn Dorman's OT goal

It was an eerily similar feeling for many of the Massapequa girls lacrosse players entering overtime against Northport in a Long Island championship game. And it wasn’t bringing back positive memories.

Massapequa was one year removed from losing to Northport in that matchup. Northport had scored the tying goal to force overtime last year and did so again on Sunday.

But Caitlyn Dorman was convinced that this game would end differently. When she stood for an 8-meter shot in the closing seconds of overtime, the senior attack was surprisingly calm.

“I really wasn’t freaking out,” Dorman said. “Once overtime hit, there was something in my soul that I knew that we got this. Nothing was going to stop us and nothing did.”

Dorman scored with 18.8 seconds left in overtime to give Massapequa a 9-8 victory over Northport in the Long Island Class A championship/Southeast Regional final at Adelphi on Sunday.

“I knew I had to win it for my team,” Dorman said. “Last year was just such a heartbreak. Coming back this season, we really wanted to achieve one goal. We wanted to come back to the LICs and win what we wanted.”

Massapequa (11-5) won the first Long Island championship in program history after back-to-back losses to Northport in this game. Massapequa will play Baldwinsville in a state Class A semifinal at Cortland High School on Friday at 1 p.m.

Joely Caramelli caused a turnover and recorded a ground ball with 55 seconds left in overtime, and a long run to the goal by Jessica Giller set up Dorman’s winning goal.

“This team continues to battle,” coach Erin Kollar said. “It was a familiar opponent. Third time and the stars were aligning. Third time’s the charm, and to do it in that fashion and in overtime, the way our hearts were broken last year, they’ve been waiting for this moment for exactly a year.”

Kate Atkinson scored off an assist from Kennedy Radziul with 2:48 left in the second half to tie it at 8 for Northport (17-3). Massapequa had scored seven of the game’s first eight goals before Northport scored twice in the final two minutes of the first half to bring the score to 7-3..

“We know Northport, we knew we had this big lead but we knew they weren’t going to give up without a fight,” Kollar said. “And they continued to fight and Caitlyn Dorman came up big.”

Allison Petrullo had two goals and two assists, Ellie Leisen had two goals and an assist, Caramelli had two goals and Bridget Valentine had a goal and an assist for Massapequa. Atkinson and Radziul each had three goals and an assist for Northport.

“Since Day One of this season, we’ve had that chip on our shoulder after the last LIC game,” Caramelli said. “We remembered what happened last year and we weren’t going to let it happen again.”