Oceanside girls soccer defeats Massapequa in double overtime for Nassau Class AAA crown
Oceanside wins the Nassau Class AAA girls soccer final at Farmingdale State College on Monday. Credit: Derrick Dingle /Derrick Dingle
With tired legs after 95 minutes of action, Oceanside knew it needed just one more big play to earn itself a title and end a drought dating to 1979.
Kaylin Harrington’s goal gave No. 1 Oceanside a 2-1 double-overtime victory over No. 3 Massapequa in the Nassau Class AAA girls soccer final at Farmingdale State on Monday night.
“This is such a mix of emotions right now. This is unheard of for our school,” Harrington said. “This hasn’t been done in decades, so this is a big moment for us.”
After an uneventful first overtime period, Harrington received a pass from Chloe Polito and took a deep shot with 9:25 remaining that found the back left corner of the net.
“I didn’t know if I was even going to have an open shot,” Harrington said. “I just took a touch and my instinct was to shoot it. All I thought was just shoot it.”
“After the first overtime, we all were just thinking, we got this,” Vanessa Frangiadakis said. “You’ve got to push those next 15 minutes. This is what we practice for; this is what we do conditioning at 7 a.m. for.”
Oceanside missed a breakaway opportunity at the 28:58 mark of the first half. Domenica Rasi made four of her six saves in the first half for Massapequa, including a leaping grab.
Frangiadakis headed in a ball from Ava Bowers with 28:46 left in the second half, but Massapequa didn’t take long to respond. Nicole Castonguay sent a pass that Carly Schuler was able to track down behind the defense, launching the ball to the back of the net.
“It was definitely a hard feeling when they scored,” Frangiadakis said. “We kind of put our heads down for a second and felt defeated. But we recovered quickly and stopped letting it get to us.”
Oceanside will face the Commack/Ward Melville winner at 5 p.m. on Sunday at Farmingdale State in the Long Island Class AAA championship game.
“It’s always a battle with Massapequa, so we knew going in that it would be tough,” coach Danielle Chiera said. “These girls gave it everything and they get all the credit. They wanted this.”
Christopher Matias covers high school sports for Newsday after spending time in Athletic Facilities and Operation at St. John’s and in Sports Information at CUNY York college.