Jenna Obloj lifts West Islip girls lacrosse to Suffolk Class B title with late goal

Jenna Obloj may only be a freshman, but she has learned a few tricks throughout her limited years.

The West Islip attack knew all eyes were on her at this moment. With the score tied and less than a minute left in the fourth quarter, Obloj lined up for a free-position shot. But rather than charging full speed directly to the goal, she wisely slowed up near the net and squeezed between two defenders before shooting. The result: A winning goal. And a county championship.

Obloj scored the tiebreaker with 31 seconds left as No. 2 West Islip defeated top-seeded Smithtown West, 8-7, in the girls lacrosse Suffolk Class B final at West Islip High School on Friday night.

Smithtown West was unable to fire a shot over the game’s final 30 seconds.

“There was a lot of good pressure that was put on me by the fans and by my teammates,” Obloj said. “I knew it was a big moment and I had to take it to the goal. I had to block out the noise from everyone else and I knew that could be the difference between us winning or losing.”

West Islip (11-6) advances to play the winner of Long Beach/Garden City in the Long Island Class B championship/Southeast Regional Final at 5:30 p.m. on June 1 at Longwood High School after winning its second straight Suffolk Class B title. Smithtown West (13-5) also lost to West Islip in the Suffolk Class B final last year. 

West Islip didn’t get a great start with Smithtown West opening a 4-1 lead less than seven minutes in Friday night. But the Lions remained confident they’d come back.

Carley Sgueglia, who finished with two goals and an assist, scored with 4:06 left in the first quarter to end Smithtown West’s 4-0 scoring run and Ava Obloj, Jenna’s older sister, scored with 1:38 left to cut the lead to 4-3 after the first period. Ava and Jenna each scored two goals.

“I knew that we were going to be able to come back and do what we always do, which is win some ground balls and score,” Sgueglia said. “I knew making the score 4-2 would shift the energy and we’d feel like we were back in it, so we had to get the energy back. I think it showed that even when we are down, we believe in ourselves and find a way to get back.”

Smithtown West led, 5-4, at halftime but West Islip held Smithtown West to just two goals in the second half, in large part to Makenna Gagliardi’s play in goal. She had multiple challenging saves in the second half, including three in the fourth quarter.

“The game was on the line and it was a one-goal game back and forth, I knew I had to do it for my team,” Gagliardi said. “It was pretty much all or nothing. I just made sure I was focused and locked in and just blocked everything else out and the only thing I was focused on was making saves.”

Even though West Islip lost some talented players from last year, coach Joe Nicolosi felt the Lions could compete for another title this spring.

“We said we have the pieces to this puzzle, we just have to put it together and we did some mixing around and we were able to get it back,” Nicolosi said. “Back-to-back county champs, it’s unbelievable.”