Massapequa Girls Field Hockey Loses Long Island Championship

After a long and grueling girls field hockey season, the Class-A Long Island finals were finally decided in a clash between the Massapequa Chiefs and the Ward Melville Patriots on the grounds of C.W. Post University. Unfortunately, the Chiefs' dominant run this season finally came to an end with Ward Melville taking the championship game, 5-1.

The win secured the Patriots a place in the State finals, starting this Friday.

Patriot Callie Vitalo scored her first goal just shy of two minutes into the first half. Vitalo followed that up by rocketing her second ball into the Chiefs' goal at eight and a half minutes in.

Despite Massapequa trying their best to turn the tide, Ward Melville's defense held firm, allowing them to close out the first half, 2-0.

The second half seemed to continue the trend, with the Patriots' third goal coming courtesy of Vanessa Pryor at just over four minutes into play.

However, as things were looking bleak for Massapequa, a ray of hope shined in the form of Kelsey O'Brien, who slammed a fierce shot into Ward Melville's net at 23:23 remaining, finally putting the Chiefs on the scoreboard, 3-1.

But despite throwing everything they had into the rest of the half, the Chiefs were unable to find any other holes in the Patriots' game.

The same couldn't be said of Ward Melville, who added two more goals to their tally before the game was through. Patriot goal number four was delivered by Abby Beltrani with 7:44 on the clock and, just as the game was winding down, Vanessa Pryor nabbed her second goal at 2:41 remaining to close out the game, 5-1, giving the Patriots the Long Island title.

Despite the loss, Massapequa head coach Barbara Lowell was pleased with the showing her girls put on.

"It's okay," she said. "We always set goals in the beginning of the season, and our goal was to win Counties, so this was just icing on the cake. The fact that we got to play another game after Counties is a bonus...there are 65 other Long Island teams that are sitting at home right now."

"We're happy to be here," Lowell added. "It's a gorgeous day, and it's upsetting, of course...you want to win, but the girls played great, they worked hard, and I couldn't be prouder."

Lowell said it was a case of an inexperienced team meeting a tough opponent.

"Ward Melville is a great team," she said. "I give them a lot of credit, and they work hard. However, we're also a young team - we've got two freshmen starting - so there's a little bit of nerves, plus we weren't sure what to expect, playing a Suffolk County team. We didn't have any non-League games against Suffolk this year, but I don't know what it was. But we worked hard this year"

Kelsey O'Brien tried to put a positive spin on the situation.

"We worked hard all season," she said. "We won Counties, which was one of our goals, to get here. We knew it would going to be a tough game coming in, so we tried our best, but things happen and there's always next season, so we'll see what happens."

Despite the pain of making it to the finals only to come up short, O'Brien was already plotting for next year.

"It was a great season, and I had fun," she said. "We know what we can do for next year, that's all. We're looking ahead."

Massapequa finishes out the season at 12-5.