Adelphi men's lacrosse repeats as D-II national champs on Kyle Lewis' OT goal
Adelphi players hoist the championship trophy after Sunday's 9-8 overtime win over Tampa gave the Panthers back-to-back NAA Division II men's lacrosse national championships. Credit: Jaime Campos
FOXBOROUGH, Mass. — The Adelphi coaches love just about everything about Kyle Lewis. His passion for the game is unmatched on the men’s lacrosse team and he often spends hours talking X’s and O’s and breaking down tape with the staff after practices.
There is one thing that has bugged them this season, though. They felt Lewis was too unselfish, that he would often look to make the extra but unnecessary pass rather than score on his own.
“He’s just given it up, given it up,” head coach Gordon Purdie said. “We’ve had to yell at him, show him on film, that he’s not taking the shots he needs to take.”
On Sunday, Lewis took the shot. And what a shot it was.
The junior midfielder from Carey dodged to his right and fired off a sidearmed blazer that found the back of the net 1:19 into overtime of the Division II national championship game and gave Adelphi a thrilling 9-8 win over previously unbeaten and top-seeded Tampa. It also gave Adelphi (19-1) a second straight title, a ninth overall and further cemented the Garden City school as the current epicenter of lacrosse at its level.
“As soon as I saw the step he had on the defender, my heart just pumped an extra beat because I said, ‘This is it, he’s gonna take this shot,’ ” Purdie said. “You give Kyle a step, he’s going to take advantage of that.”
“I knew the goalie usually drops when I drop my hands so I went low to high,” Lewis said of the play which was drawn up on the sideline by associate head coach Joe Catalanotti. “It was kind of crazy. That’s stuff you dream of, going onto OT and getting one shot and you hit it or you don’t.”
It was, Lewis said, the first time he ever scored an overtime walk-off goal at any level. The worst part? The celebratory dogpile on top of him after it went in that had him feeling a little claustrophobic for a time.
“That was bad,” Lewis said, smiling. “I was screaming, ‘Get up! Get up!’ I was suffocating and I panic in those positions. But I’m glad we got it done.”
None of it would have happened if not for an unlikely turn of events at the end of regulation that will now live in lacrosse lore.
With the score tied at 8, Tampa had the ball in the final minute and Zack Friend took a shot that was saved by Adelphi goalie Dylan Renner (Mineola). The ball rebounded out in front of the cage and Renner came out to fight for it as time wound down. Friend eventually scooped up the loose ball and in the same motion spun and fired a shot into a practically open net for the game-winning goal with 12 seconds remaining.
But Tampa called and was awarded timeout before Friend scored and the officials waved off the goal. Tampa wouldn’t get another shot on goal in the game.
“That’s going to haunt me forever,” Tampa coach J.B. Clarke said of the textbook decision to call the timeout.
Said Renner, who had 14 saves but thought he’d just gotten beat to end his collegiate career: “It was a sign from God that we deserved to win that game. I’m not really a lucky person in life but that’s the luckiest thing that’s ever happened to me.”
So the game went into overtime, the first Division II final to do so since 2005 when New York Tech (a team that just happened to be honored on its 20th anniversary at halftime of this game) beat Limestone. Tampa still had the advantage, though, having won the majority of the faceoffs and with Adelphi’s best player at that task, freshman Michael Hendrickson (Lynbrook), not able to square off because of a previous violation. Will Grieves (Wantagh) took the duty for Adelphi and Tampa nearly came up with it but a check by Ryan Durnin (Massapequa) forced a turnover out of bounds that gave the Panthers the ball to begin the extra period.
Their first shot of overtime by Vincent McDermott, a Massapequa product who had four goals in his best game since transferring to Adelphi from Hofstra, barely missed the upper right corner but set up a restart behind the cage that led to Lewis’ game-winner.
The shot the Panthers had been trying to coax Lewis into take all season.
Or as Purdie simply called it: “The play that I’ll never forget.”
Tom Rock began covering sports for Newsday in 1996 and became its NFL columnist in 2022. He previously was Newsday's Giants beat writer beginning in 2008.
