Lakeland/Panas Beats Yorktown in Overtime

It was dejavu for the Lakeland/Panas and Yorktown boys lacrosse teams as they went into overtime at the Section 1 Class A championship game Wednesday night in White Plains for the second year in a row.

Last year, Yorktown beat its long-time rival Lakeland/Panas in overtime with a final sore of 11-10. But this year, things were much different.

Rebels Will Fallo scored the game winner off an assist from Robert Caffrey with 1:32 to go in overtime. It gave Lakeland the winning title with an 8-7 victory after an impressive season (16-3).

"This is the best feeling in the world," Fallo said. "It's everything I dreamed of. Everything I have worked for since I was 12 years old to get to this point. It's such big win for our program. There is no better feeling. This is tremendous."

Lakeland/Panas' Conor Prunty scored two goals and an assist. Prunty's goals both came in the opening quarter.

"I just wanted to help my teammates come out strong," Prunty said. "We had been waiting for this game for a year now. Last year we walked off this field crying. This year I just wanted to do everything I could to help my team win."

Rebels' Caffrey tallied two goals and two assists. One of the scores came with just 1:50 to go before halftime, when Prunty found Caffrey cutting right in front of the net, dished it to him and Caffrey took the pass and put it in the net to tie the game at 3-3.

Also scoring for the Rebels were Shawn Honovich (two goals) and Conor Mackay (one goal).

"We just wanted to come out hard, play a strong 48 minutes and that's what we did today," Caffrey said. "We let up two goals at the end but we just continued to push because we wanted this sectional championship badly."

Yorktown wanted it badly too.

It seemed the No. 2 Huskers (11-8) would be in the regional semifinals when they tied it at seven with two goals late in the fourth quarter, with the game-tying goal coming with 3:38 left in the quarter. Ty Schuldt scored each goal, with both assists coming from Justin Mabus.

For the game, Schuldt had three goals, Mabus tallied two goals and three assists, and Joey Porcelli registered two scores.

"We were just looking for the right opportunity at the right time," Mabus said. "Everyone wants to win the game so you do what you can."

"I was very proud of my players," Yorktown coach Dave Marr said. "We were down by two goals in the fourth quarter but we fired back up, got it tied and into overtime. We played a great team. You just have to tip your hat to them."

Lakeland/Panas' coach Jim Lindsay said he was proud of his squad.

"This win is everything we have been working for five years since I took over," Lindsay said. "To go from getting blown out in our first Murphy Cup game to last year losing in overtime, we really wanted to dig in and win for those kids last year, the guys coming back this year. This win is huge, not just for the guys on our team this year or the last five years, for anyone who has been with this program, going back to the 90s and even further back than that."

Besides coaching the Rebels to this year's title, Lindsay played on the Lakeland/Panas squad that defeated Yorktown 7-4 in the sectional title game in 1997. In the past 30 years, Yorktown has lost a sectional title game only three times, and Lindsay was involved in two of those.

Wednesday's win puts the Rebels in the regional semifinals against Section 2 champion Shenendehowa on Saturday, June 5, at 6 p.m. at Yorktown High School.