Adelphi women's lacrosse advances to next round of NCAA Division tournament with overtime win over New Haven

Marielle Colalillo scored the tiebreaking goal from in close with 30.2 seconds left in regulation, and Adelphi had the perfect prospective ending against New Haven:

Former New Haven player beats her old team, sending Adelphi to the NCAA Division II women’s lacrosse quarterfinals.

One problem — the 30.2 seconds left. It wasn’t the end yet in this second-round thriller Saturday at Motamed Field in Garden City. The Chargers tied it with 17.5 seconds left. But the Panthers didn’t blink.

“We’ve kind of lived by the motto of just ‘Next play,’  ” Adelphi coach Pat McCabe said.

New Haven had a chance to win it about two minutes into sudden death, but Madison Marchetta got in the way. The senior goalie from Lynbrook made the last of her 13 saves. Next play: Ashley Kolomechuk, a sophomore attack from Commack, made a move up top and took a shot at her fifth goal of the game and 65th of the season.

Now Adelphi had the ending it wanted. The ball landed in the net with 3:28 remaining in the six-minute overtime session, and the Panthers were moving on after a sweaty 15-14 victory, their 10th in a row.

“I’d obviously like to take credit for it myself, but at the end of the day, it was just the last goal,” Kolomechuk said. “There was so much more that went into this win for us as a team.”

This team is 17-3 and now three slippery steps away from the program’s 10th national championship.

“Obviously, it’s a lot of pressure,” Kolomechuk said. “I think sometimes pressure can be a good thing.”

The next pressure-packed game is Adelphi-Pace III, set for 3 p.m. Saturday on this same turf. Pace won, 16-12, on March 26 and Adelphi won, 14-13, in the Northeast 10 final on May 3.

“They definitely gave us great competition last game,” Marchetta said, “but we’re just going to play our game. That’s been working for us.”

Their season ended on the final slippery step last year, the national championship game against Tampa.

“It definitely is driving us a lot more this year,” Marchetta said, “but we’re just taking it game by game, not looking too far ahead.”

She made her final save on a shot that hopped low off the stick of Katie Schenk, who had scored four times.

“That could’ve been the end of my season and the last game I played,” Marchetta said. “I knew I had to save it.”

Adelphi started heading the other way.

“What do you want to do?” Frankie Caridi, the associate head coach, asked McCabe, knowing a timeout was available.

“Let ’em play,” McCabe said.

“Because I trust them,” McCabe said afterward.

Kolomechuk validated that trust. She had the shot and took it, ending New Haven’s season at 13-6.

“Definitely a tough loss,” Schenk said, “but I think being able to go into overtime against a really good Adelphi team was incredible for our program.”

The Panthers went from down 11-10 after three quarters to up 13-11 with 10:14 left on goals by Amanda Lee, Julia Foppiano — who scored three — and Payson Hedges.

But Caitlin Seleny and Schenk countered — 13-13.

Colalillo then scored her lone goal, but Schenk fed Seleny for her sixth goal — all in the second half — to tie it again. Then Kolomechuk untied it for good.

“They’ve got a lot of young kids on their team right now, but they’ve got great coaching and they’re always there at the end,” Chargers coach Jen Fallon said. “So I think they’re definitely poised to make a good run.”

Adelphi was running uphill in the first quarter, falling behind 2-0, 3-1 and 4-2. The Panthers led just 7-6 at intermission.

“We’ve been a slow-starting team for much of the year,” McCabe said. “I don’t know why that is. You try different things. But we’ve been a second-half team.”

On this win-or-else day, they were an overtime team, too.