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 play, Oceanside knew it needed just one more big play to earn itself a title and end a drought dating back to 1978.
Kaylin Harrington’s goal led No. 1 Oceanside to 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 and the same for five minutes of the second, Harrington received a pass from Chloe Polito and took a deep shot with 9:25 remaining that eluded the goalkeeper and 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.”
The first half was dominated by Oceanside, but it couldn’t put a goal on the board. The Sailors missed a breakaway opportunity at the 28:58 mark of the first half, with the shot sailing just left of the goal. Domenica Rasi made four of her six saves in the first half for Massapequa, including a leaping grab.
Oceanside was able to strike first when Frangiadakis headed in a ball from Ava Bowers with 28:46 remaining in the second half.
Massapequa didn’t take long to respond as Nicole Castonguay sent a pass that Carly Schuler was able to track down behind the defense, before launching the ball just beyond the dive of the goalie, 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 advance to face the winner of Commack/Ward Melville at 5 p.m. on Sunday at Farmingdale State in the Long Island Class AAA championship.
“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.
