Thursday, October 1, 2026
Winning the conference has become commonplace for the Carey girls’ soccer team. Now it’s hoping it will finally translate to a deep playoff run.
The Seahawks clinched their third straight division championship with a 2-0 win at Baldwin on Oct. 14 before rallying to tie Division 1-1 two days later to finish 7-1-5 (7-1-4 Conference AAA/AA3), four points clear of the Roslyn and Division. The deadlock also sealed the team’s third straight one-loss campaign.
Carey advanced to the quarterfinals last fall, but eventually fell short of its first-ever county title. The Seahawks were set to begin the playoffs Tuesday at Manhasset (4-8-4) and coach Chris Posillico is confident that it will be the beginning of run that leads them to Farmingdale State College on Nov. 1.
“I thought in the beginning of the season, my sights were set on hopefully getting to another quarterfinal,” he said. “But after we played a non-league against Calhoun to start the year and tied them 0-0, I really feel like if we play our best that, on any day, we can beat anybody.”
The Seahawks went 3-0-3 following a 1-0 loss at Division on Sept. 19. After a scoreless tie against Roslyn two days later, freshman Laura Maya and sophomore Gabriella Perna snapped the shutout drought with second-half goals to beat Farmingdale 2-0 and junior Ava Iori netted her only goal of the season in the second half of a 1-1 draw at Kennedy on Sept. 30.
Carey’s leading scorer Amelia Kalamaras scored twice in a 3-1 win over New Hyde Park on Oct. 7 and senior Toni Flaherty tallied in both halves of the conference clincher.
The second half magic continued during the rematch with Division. Dragons All-County star Rebecca Petrellese gave her team the lead in the first half with an arcing free kick that snuck underneath the crossbar, but Kalamaras responded early in the second with her team-tying fifth goal of the campaign to preserve the tie.
The Seahawks outscored the opposition 14-2 in the second half this season, boosted by a 9-0 margin in the eight games following the Division loss.
“It’s funny because from my end as a coach, I always get on them because I always call it a slow start instead of a strong finish,” Posillico said. “Always in the first half, it’s like molasses.”
Kalamaras added four assists to pace the team with nine points, just behind Maya (5-2-7).
The Seahawks won despite several injury setbacks. Original starting goalie Maggie Gonzalez tore her ACL in the second game of the season, eighth grader Sofia Santana (3-1-4) was lost for the season with a sprained ankle near the midway point and senior co-captain Gabriella Jacob missed some games with a heel injury.
Senior Kaitlyn Zitarosa volunteered to take over in goal and the result was 72 saves and four shutouts.
“She is one of the only reasons that we’re here right now,” Posillico said.
Iori and eighth graders Madeline Masa, Juliana Tonkin, and Michaela Messina also helped anchor a defense that surrendered just eight goals all year.
