Wantagh girls basketball wins Long Island Class A title for first time in program history

Juliana Cerasi and many of her multisport Wantagh teammates felt defeat too many times one game away from winning a Long Island title. They weren’t going to allow that to happen for a third time in less than 12 months.

That focus was apparent from the opening tip Saturday night as Wantagh defeated Mount Sinai, 54-30, in the Long Island Class A girls basketball championship/Southeast Regional Final at Farmingdale State College.

Wantagh used an 18-6 fourth quarter to pull away and win its first Long Island title in program history.

Wantagh reached a Long Island championship in girls lacrosse and girls soccer since losing in the Nassau Class A girls basketball final last year.

“We already had two shots at this,” Cerasi said, “and the third time’s a charm.”

She added: “Most of the team have had other sports get to this point, so we know the feeling of losing and we didn’t want our season to end. We’ve played, I counted 116 days of basketball, and we wanted more. We love playing with each other and we just pushed to the end to show that we really wanted to keep going.”

Wantagh (22-2) plays Albany Academy at 1:30 p.m. Friday at Hudson Valley Community College in the state Class A semifinals. 

Wantagh led 13-9 after the first quarter and expanded its lead to 22-13 at halftime. Wantagh led 36-24 after three quarters before its dominant final period.

“I kept telling them all week, ‘You can make a name for yourself in the history of our program,' " coach Stan Bujacich said. “ ‘It could be you.' "

Kayla Mannix scored nine of her game-high 18 points in the fourth quarter.

“I had a different mindset,” Mannix said. “I knew at halftime I had to get it together. I knew we had it so I kept telling my teammates, ‘Keep going, keep going.’ ”

Isabelle Ferraro scored 13 points, including four three-pointers. Cerasi had eight points, eight rebounds, four assists and four steals and Riley Forthofer added six points and 13 rebounds for Wantagh. Mia Betancourt led Mount Sinai (19-4) with 10 points.

“We came out strong, we pressed right away and we don’t usually do that,” Cerasi said. “We wanted to leave a message and that’s what we did.”

As the final seconds ticked off, Cerasi couldn’t help but think back to previous Long Island championship finals.

“You remember that feeling of crying on the bench,” Cerasi said. “We said it at the end. We were sitting there on the bench getting ready to celebrate, but last year we were hysterically crying.”

But Wantagh isn’t satisfied with just winning a Long Island title. It looks to make even more history in Troy.

“We’ll be ready,” Bujacich said. “I don’t want to go up there just for a joyride. We want to go up there and get that first game and then anything can happen in the second game. This is something special for our program and our community.”