Smithtown East Beats West Islip 3-2 in Penalty Kicks, Wins County Title

One year ago, the West Islip girls varsity soccer team won the Suffolk County Class AA Championship in dramatic fashion with just seconds remaining. This year's final proved be to just as thrilling.  Unfortunately for the Lions, it didn't have the same story book ending. 

After 80 minutes of regulation and 30 minutes of overtime, the championship came down to penalty kicks. When both teams scored on two of their first five shots, it went to sudden death penalty kicks. After West Islip's Molly Ohman's shot bounced off the right post, Smithtown East's Jaclyn Interrant went top shelf on to end the game and end another impressive season for the Lions.

"This team never gives up and they give 100 percent effort," head coach Nick Grieco said. "If someone told us at the beginning of the year that we'd be in the county finals again for the third year in a row with a new group of 24 girls I'd say you're crazy, but these kids did an outstanding job. They should be very proud."

Before Wednesday night's loss at the Dowling College Sports Complex in Brookhaven, the Lions had felt defeat just one other time in 2010-- it  happened to be against this same Smithtown East team. Back on Sept. 22, the Bulls defeated the Lions by a score of 1-0 to hand them to their first and what would turn out to be only loss of the regular season.

The Lions had their revenge in a , and it came down to the two teams once again for the county title.  It became more and more evident as time kept ticking away in a scoreless tie just how evenly matched these two teams were.

"They beat us once and we beat them once so we knew it was going to be a tough battle," Grieco said. "It ended up in a shootout, they put the ball in and we didn't. They deserved to win."

Whitney, who had a tremendous senior season in net for the Lions and didn't allow a goal in regulation or overtime in the entire postseason, actually was the one who took the first penalty kick for the Lions. Whitney's shot deflected off the right post and out before Lauren Bellone and Taylor LaRose scored for the Lions to tie it at 2-2 and send it to sudden death.

"We've been practicing [penalty kicks] all week and we took the kids with the highest percentages…simple math," Grieco said. "That was the way we went.  I was just telling them, who cares what mistakes you made? Focus on the moment. Don't worry about what happened before because it doesn't matter."

Considering the massive turnover the Lions went through after last year, coach Grieco was very happy with his team's performance this season and looks forward to future successes next season.

"We're just going to work out our strengths, stay positive and focus on out team concept," he said.