By JOSEPH KELLARD
But for the Sailors, in more ways than one, this was not how the season should have ended.
Massapequa won its second consecutive Nassau Class A boys' title May 31 on a controversial overtime goal that was the subject of a protest filed by Oceanside coach Bob Moltisanti with Section VIII, the county's governing body of athletics. But the section's lacrosse committee ruled against the protest.
Patrick Campbell's goal, which broke a 4-4 sudden-death tie, was immediately contested by Sailors goalie John Bella and his teammates before 2,500 spectators at Hofstra's Shuart Stadium. After Campbell ran around the net shadowed by Oceanside's John Mirando, twirled around and took a bounce shot on his tip-toes from five yards out, the netting rustled and referee Ray Buckley shot his arms in the air, signifying a goal, after which the other two refs consulted with him.
"That was not a goal," said Bella, who had 15 saves, as he watched the post-game trophy ceremonies. "... It hit on the outside right on the bottom. I was against the pipe, so I don't know how it could have possibly gone in the net, come back out and sit out on the ground out there."
"After I took the shot, my face was on the ground," Campbell said before he boarded the bus back to Massapequa, "but I looked up and I saw the ball come out the front of the net, which I thought was pretty impossible if it hit the back, so I figured it was a goal."
The scoring began without controversy early in the first period on a shot by Massapequa's Chris Hurt, who netted his team's first three goals. Just seven seconds later Oceanside attackman Sean Lucas answered with a goal from a few yards out. Six minutes later, Lucas assisted Sean King, who swatted Lucas's feed into the right side of the net to put the Sailors up 2-1.
Oceanside kept defensive pressure on Massapequa early on, forcing the Chiefs to mishandle several balls or take weak shots, and Bella proved to be a brick wall on the shots the Chiefs made on goal. "John played really well," Moltisanti said about his junior goalie.
After Oceanside midfielder Mitch Cooper scored early in the second period, attackman Pete Boucher put the Sailors up 4-2 at the half by fighting his way from behind the net out front to score with 4:04 left. Massapequa ratcheted up its offense at the end of the third period, with Hurst making an unassisted goal that he bounced in front of Bella, and Massapequa's Kevin Zorovich intercepted a pass from Mirando and fed it to attackman Rob Nosworthy, who broke free to the net and tied the game at 4.
The scoreless fourth period saw Bella make saves on two dead-on shots Campbell whipped at him with no defenders in his path, and during the final six minutes Oceanside's offense attempted a slew of shots that Chiefs goalie Brian Nerney stopped or his defensemen forced wide or low. "I tried to get my players to shoot high on the goalie," Moltisanti said, "but they kept trying to bounce the ball."
Massapequa won the overtime face-off, and after another outstanding save by Bella, Campbell stole the ball from a Sailors defender and, just two minutes into sudden-death, took what turned out to be the winning shot. "I was running the cage, I got my depth, turned the corner, took a decent shot and it won the game," he said.
Oceanside attackman Sean Lucas, who was standing at the midline when Campbell took his shot, said, "I was right to the right of the cage, so I could see perfectly that the ball didn't go in. It was clear as day."
"We could have scored a goal down there," Moltisanti said of his team's offensive onslaught at the end of regulation. "So I can't be a sore loser, because we had plenty of opportunities. ... [But] to have a ref have the final decision on a bad call as to who gets the title is not right."
Massapequa coach Steve Mollot said he had no idea whether Campbell's shot went in or not. "The way it bounced out, it looked like it might have hit the top of the net and kicked back out," he added. "I don't really know."
Videotape that Oceanside's athletics department shot from the right side of the cage, from a high vantage point, revealed that Campbell's shot bounced and hit the outside of the net. But such evidence is inadmissible when Section VIII's lacrosse committee entertains a formal protest like Oceanside's. "There's no official tape at a game," said Todd Heimer, executive director of Section VIII, noting that the committee does not review video unless it involves an incident, such as a fight or a problem in the stands. "So we went with what the officials said," he added in his explanation of the decision to deny Oceanside's protest.
Moltisanti registered his protest, he said, to give the two other referees a post-game opportunity to overrule Buckley's call. Moltisanti said that at the committee meeting last Friday, however, one official said he wasn't looking at the ball at the time of the shot, and the other said he was unsure of whether or not the ball went in the net, so he went by Buckley's call.
If the committee had ruled in favor of Oceanside's protest, the game could have been picked up where it left off in sudden-death overtime. Moltisanti said he thought the committee could at least have made Oceanside co-champions with Massapequa.
This was Moltisanti's‹and Oceanside's‹first trip to the county championships since they won the title in 1996. The Sailors came close again in 2001, falling to Hicksville in a semifinal match.
"That's terrible," Lucas said after the game, his voice filled with emotion, about the referee's call, "because a lot of people's dreams were shut down. Four years and a whole lifetime full of hard work to get to this point, and it didn't come true ..."
Comments about this story? JKellard@liherald.com or (516) 569-4000 ext. 287.
